


FoxInAField

by falsemessiah



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: FOXHOUND era, Gen, M/M, PORTABLE OPS DO NOT INTERACT, also unfortunately this is going to end up being a pretty big work, but it is snox based, intentionally stylized in this particular manner, this work is not heavy on snox interactions, unfortunately this gets easier to read as you go on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2020-10-28 04:44:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20772743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsemessiah/pseuds/falsemessiah
Summary: Outer Heaven left in ruins. Frank Jaeger ruminates. The world is cold and lonely, the river freezes in motion. The snow buries you in as you die a slow and painful death in a cabin in the woods. Nobody will know, and maybe it's better that way.





	1. hangboard

i.

_ “This part of the story is about the death penalty and angelic screaming and seven thousand islands floating at the end of the world. It ends when a carnivorous man buries a boy that loved him in a field of snow.” _

_ - _ [ _ Stephan _ ](http://teamcaptains.tumblr.com/post/143713133051/this-part-of-the-story-is-about-the-death-penalty)

Flowers don't lose their color in the off season but i heard that leaves do. They both shrivel up and die but is that where there lives end? do they have life or are they part of something bigger and they mean nothing to anybody or anything else? would they feel if i bit into their petals, would they understand that i was not trying to hurt them, i was only trying to see if they felt? would they tell me if they were in pain?

Does anybody say anything until their hanging from the edge of a cliff and cant hold on much longer, would they say anything if they could? i wouldn't, would you? I know you wouldn't, so neither will I. 

The ground begins to crumble under the slipping grip and your lips are sewn shut and your voice has been stolen, the monster who lives on your shoulder eases you to relax and his claws bury deep into muscles of your shoulders. Crying out is admission of pain. It is admission of weakness. But the monster convinces you otherwise, think of all the pain you’ll cause by reaching out. Think of the man who will carry your body and your burden to bed. Now think of him leaving. You pick apart your ribs to make room for the monster and fuse the bone back together. Do you keep it a secret to lessen the pain for others or yourself? Do you not confront it for them, or yourself? 

**COULD I BELIEVE YOU OTHERWISE?**

Smoke rises up the chimney and the auburn sting burns my throat, it gives me the illusion that I’m doing something. That I’m doing anything but i'm not. My breath hangs in the night sky, head tilted back to look at the stars with such clarity never granted to me before, the waves of color demand awe and respect. They demanded fear for they were a magic floating above my head wielding threats to split it open and pick apart whatever was inside only to find there’s nothing to parse. Nothing to make worse. the heavens will look away in shame for trying to take away the nothing i have and they will move onto somebody else. 

The colors are bright and some are green and they remind me of home that I don’t have. Green like the leaves that whittle away in the fall here. Back home-- at the home that no longer exists-- the leaves never turned red, they never turned orange, they never turned yellow. They were eternal and heavy until they were gone and replaced with a perfect copy. I liked the leaves back home better than i like them here. The night sky speaks to me but i don’t understand it’s language of vast emptiness. I do not trust them.

But the moon, she speaks to me and i understand her. I don’t answer and she knows I won’t but she does not express surprise.

“This is a story about you,” she tells me while i remain silent. “Don’t you want to hear about yourself?” she asks.

I suppose that I think that I do but I keep my peace regardless, she doesn’t need me to speak. I don’t need to say a word. She tells me a story. i think she can read my mind. I dare not ask her what she knows, all I know is that she knows too much. I should be careful of what I ask, of that I think. The moon knows what its like to be against the backdrop of nothingness in the cold, all alone with no company and she feels for you.

that’s more sympathy than you’ll endure in a lifetime.

The clouds obscured the moon and it’s like it’s not there and i forget that it ever was.

I walk inside and poke at the fire, add kindle and watch it roar back at me as the dying flames come back to life like a wounded animal mustering it’s last bit of strength to warn off it’s hunters. He claims he’s strong enough to continue, to keep going. He’ll die on his terms and none other. To continue on would to be at your peril, its a gamble to play with a cornered animal; do you think you could still take it in it’s wild frenzy?

If they were still alive would they come to look for me, or is this little corner of the world so neatly tucked away that the only thing I could do would be to exist without consequence or reason? I scanned the stock in a local drugstore for hours brokenly speaking a language a language I didn’t understand when somebody came for help. We all need help. Their eyes are blank and hollow, it’s hard to determine if they’re really even there.

beep. beep. beep. beep.

Can you hear them?

I pull out one of the earbuds and I look back with an emptier and more hollow look. They ask again. A habit that was easy to pick up was to feign mute, lazily using sign language to avoid speaking to most. I use it and the woman doesn’t understand. Its four twenty six am and she needs baby formula, its in this aisle and i point away from me and all she does is stare with sadness in her eyes. I dont know what she says next. I havent learned the language in the last two minutes. The earbud sits back where it belongs, there’s no music playing, there’s no cassette in the walkman. There’s nothing material that lasts here so i didn’t bother. Sometimes, all people need is the idea and they will manage to infer. Will you infer? does it not terrify you to be wrong?

I drive out into the middle of a lake iced over, whether it’s supposedly daytime or not doesn’t matter. I meet a man in a dark vehicle but the vehicle never moves and its never left any marks on the snow or the ice to show that it moved. The man is silent and he hands me a list of work to be done and a paper folded strangely. Tasked with a simple job, I help him move the boxes. From his truck to a car i somehow missed when i arrived. The car receiving the shipment looked to have been parked here for weeks, snow piled on the roof. The black truck must have some sort of heating mechanism, or maybe the snow refuses to settle on the sleek dark body of the car. The man is sadder than I am. It’s cold and he’s wearing nothing but a suit and he never shivers. Does he live in the black truck? 

We don’t trust each other. We don’t share any words. He pays me for yesterday’s work and watches me as i leave. I think he knows something about me. I think he knows more than he should. I open the paper folded five times over and it’s blank.

When I arrive home I put it with the rest of them, from there they will reach out to me and ask to be used as kindle but i will keep them alive. They’re important and I know they are but i can’t see why yet. The moon peeks out again on the long walk home. She is company and this time she doesn’t speak-- the bright lights accompanying her would have drowned her out if she tried. The moon is old and knows how it goes. Aurora Borealis. Aurora borealis. 

Loudloudloudloud.

They will not get to me, they’re not welcome here, there’s a howl from the distance and you don’t know if it’s for you but a certain warmth radiates from my chest. My hand touches my sternum and it disappears. Should you turn around will glowing eyes and bared teeth be watching you with it’s pack? We’re outnumbered and should they be here for us, nobody would ever know. They wouldn’t care. Let us find our peace in that. You never wanted to bring pain upon anybody else anyways. The howl came from behind us, where we had come from. I reason he’s too far away and you agree. I wonder about his name the next day when another man has taken his place. Nothing else has changed and maybe nothing else will ever change. I see no other signs of struggle, I see no footprints in the snow that didn’t belong to me, I see  **nothing ** changed. It’s not the same man though. It’s a different one and he’s shorter but he acts the same and looks the same and he stares at me blankly though sunglasses. “I haven’t seen the sun in seven days, what are you hiding from?”

It looks like he hasn’t moved for an entire week, the snow had him buried to his knees and was undisturbed around him. I almost forget the paper and my pay this time but i feel a tap on my shoulder and look back but he’s fifteen feet behind me and has the folded paper in his hand. I go back and take it. There’s a single drop of blood on it. Nothing else.

Instead of home I walk to the diner in town where my job is to bus tables while I keep my headphones in and the waitress yells at me. She isn’t mad, all she does is wishes to be heard over my music. I don’t have music. I found a language learning tape in the garbage and i thought maybe i can learn something from this. I feel like i now understand less and her english is broken but she’s trying. Trying more than i am so i listen harder to the tape over the clang of dishes and pots. People are here from all over. It’s nighttime again and this is the only place open but the people are all the same and the kitchen is going fast but the place is empty and now i sit across the waitress who counts her tips. She hands me my cut. He nails are broken and the polish is chipped. There is sorrow hidden in the wrinkles of her crows feet.

“Are you okay?” she asks,

“Are you?” i reply.

She ages before me with a sigh. She’s a mother of many children and none of them are her own. We say nothing and part ways. She will always be there and nowhere else, there’s no other purpose for her.

I'm home and my hands shake a little when i strike the match against the box, i throw it all onto the kindle over the logs and i watch it grow. I have enough pages from the mysterious men to make a book but i keep them stacked and blank. The singular marked page was neither the beginning or the end. It wasn’t a cry for help because cries for help will get you nowhere. It didn’t hold the wounded pride and raw aggression.  _ Help me help me,help. My flesh is supple and should you not sink your teeth into it, i will do the same. _ We are all animals in one way or another but we are blessed with dynamic memory. It will hurt you and help you and maybe i’ll remember you when you were there and maybe i’ll forget all that you have done-- but you won’t.

We could just lie to each other and say we both forgot when we didn’t. There’s no way to pry the truth out of my head because even if you cracked my skull and allowed my mind to ooze onto the concrete, the only thing that could comprehend it is the moon. Look up and tell me it doesn’t understand you like the way you yearn to be understood. It hangs low and red in the night sky, the breeze is whispering to me and i walk along the trail of footsteps back to where i go every night. It’s always night time. I'm always going there but this time the men are not there and i'm not sure of what to do.

The vehicle sits there and the car door is open and nothing else has changed. The snow has almost filled out where the man had been standing before, but it’s still there barely. In the car there’s a briefcase and it comes back home with me. I know the car won’t be there tomorrow but what I found in there will stay. I think they know my secret and i think i know theirs too.


	2. ashtray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> invincible.

ii.

_ "The smell of timelessness is there, and I am seized by an emotion I do not understand, a mixture of sorrow and freedom: everything is so unaltered, and returns, in spite of everything." _ _   
_ _ -Bo Carpelan _

Overwhelmed by flames. Taptaptaptap. The drumming of fingers against the oak wood of the table as you’re waiting. Waiting for something to happen, for something to tear you apart. Comfort will never find its way to you. The next best thing we have is seeking the absence of pain and without pain we find peace. The puncture of shrapnel speaks in sharp tones of gunmetal gray and vermillion with the taste of gunpowder in your mouth. You spit it out but it never leaves. it stays. Copper coins spill onto your tongue and they fall one by one out of your mouth and mark the sand we’re lying on top of. We’re lying on top of a graveyard with no tombstones and maybe this is what home feels like and maybe this is the closest thing we’ll ever have. 

I'm starting to think that peace comes with the pain.

Two chairs at the table and the taptaptaptap is aimed towards me. The seat is empty but he’s looking at me. We both want answers but silence hangs heavy in the air and we’re both thinking about me. 

Taptaptaptap. The roll of the drum.

Are you getting impatient with me?

He stops and looks at me, he never says a word he never has to say a word because hes never actually there. A hand clasped around my throat and i smile. I light a cigarette and i smile. Days pass and the pressure does not let up, day pass and you’re still not here days pass and things change but not you. We do not change. We are not allowed to. Cashiers behind the registers have balled joints at their elbows that i never noticed before, she looked at me and somebody has forgotten to take care of the chipped paint over her eyebrow her expression stayed the same in the breakroom when i pointed it out. We do not speak the same language but her face contorted and i saw the strings attached to her move. I was not supposed to see that. She doesn’t look at me again.

Before i leave i hear words that i don’t know be called out. 

_ Siellä ei ollut mitään. _

I turned around but there was nothing there, my time here was dwindling. Do the empty trees hold wisdom from all those years buried beneath the bark? From being made and remade time and time again as if the flow of nature was not cruel. As if it was just how things should be, as if it was what made them what they were? They’ll outlive most people here, they’ll outlive me. 

They’ll outlive you too. 

They hum without rhyme or melody and whisper to us at the edges of the forest. Lose yourself in them, lose yourself in you. It doesn’t matter what you want, you were always going to lose.

You listen to them and hasten your pace, time doesn’t matter to you but it’s far too late to be listening to them or is it too early? The jutting, sharp branch snags onto the coat, it won’t let you leave. It tears and you go home. Their sentient and you know that. They know that you know, and they know that nobody else knows. There’s nothing you can do. Feathers seep from the cut and leave a trail behind you in the snow. 

taptaptaptap . 

i think ive picked up a habit from a ghost.

Three knocks on the door and it’s time to go. There’s nobody waiting when i open the door, no footprints other than my own, but i know who was calling me. I’ve been there before.

He’s gone but i go back, there’s nobody there where he normally is but i do my job. I haven’t opened the first case but theres a new one in the truck. theres a new one for me and i know the handwriting.

frank. i take it home and i put it on top of the other case and i wonder about the men who left me this. i wonder if they'll come back and i wonder if they forgot because they know where i am, right? they know. What’s keeping them? 

This time the waitress at the diner laughed. she spoke to me and she smiled and she held my head in her hands and told me things that only the moon knew. she told me things i didn't know she knew and she held me close as my arms went limp at my side. i pushed her away and left work. the dirty dishes piled up on the table and the small diner wailed in distress. i do not want her happiness when i cannot find my own. 

Without pain there is no peace. 

The moon scolded me as i walked home the fire was dead when i arrived. taptaptaptap. some phantoms simply don't leave you alone. 

in the morning you see the feathers on the snow, the branch that grabbed you nowhere to be seen, where you walked last night was further from the treeline than you realized. the shroud of darkness does that, but it only does it to you. 

did it snow? Your footprints from last night are gone but the split in your jacket is still their when your reach for the tear, the crumbs lay gently on top of the snow, untouched. unmoved. the moonlight peeks between the heavy clouds and urges you to move on. move on past what? 

This town is playing tricks on us. 

This was the most you had seen of any gathering of people as the wilderness became less dense and little houses started appearing with more frequency. there was a town i lived outside of and past the first few days i had not seen anything outside of where i worked. a group of people gathered around a building and they were let in slowly, sitting in folding chairs in a hall. i do not know what they're saying aside from the words i had learned from the tape as i slowly reverse engineered it's meaning. it was meant for a native speaker of the language i did not know. but i was trying. i am trying harder than i was trying before.but it’s still not trying hard enough. A few speak to me in a language that i do know, i nod but do not speak back. 

Words were caught in our throat as i haven't said anything in days. in weeks. i haven't said a word that was mine in months. we don't own any words at all and they were never ours to begin with. they were never mine. they don't know who i am but they created something for me. i was nothing more than a blank slate. 

jaeger? german. wie gehts dir?  _ not well. _ gut, danke. 

these are not my words.

A stout man in a brown suit hobbles away and i feel like i know him. i feel like im missing something. i look down at the styrofoam cup in my hand and wonder how it got there and i wonder when i drank most of the hot coffee in it. there's the aftertaste of macadamia on my tongue. i leave the crowd only minutes before they funnel out of the revolving doors one by one and head home. 

Im engulfed in flames and smoke climbs out of my mouth, i drop my cigarette in the snow and it goes out on it's own. i think i forgot why i came here in the first place. I think im lost on my own.


	3. fetid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapland.

_ iii. _ _   
_ _ “I persist in mingling fictions with the most fearful realities.” _

_ -Paul Éluard  _

The stream is frozen in place, in an instant they were stuck in time and while I lived near it I couldn’t tell you when the sound of the wild river really stopped. You tell me you remember when but that’s a secret you’ll never share with me. We all have secrets and some are actually confidential and not petty like yours.

Embedded in skin and bone were the fragments crafted with sorrow and greed, there was familiar taste from before, the smokey taste that threatened to bite off your tongue in the midst of a heated argument where no words were spoken. It goes from the tang of violence to the soft notation of bitter earthiness as the dirt piles over my body in a shallow mass grave and you stand above me with a shovel. Your lashes are long and heavy when they’re not hidden beneath a furrowed brow. These are things you should know, these are things I’ll never say.

Secrets. We all have secrets.

I followed the scent that evoked an unfamiliar coziness inside of me across the barren field in the middle of the forest, little there is to make a weapon feel at home anywhere other than it’s rack and yet I followed it, tracked the scent like a bloodhound and an old woman took me into her arms all wrapped up in her dementia and held me like the child that i never actually was. I know the moon when I see her. The moon speaks the same language as I do and with her frail body she prepares me something to eat something warm and soft and when I look at you I feel the same way.

It’s too late to say that now though. Keep drumming your fingers on the table.

I have a cooking book that I can’t read sitting on the table and you flip through it and already know the language better than I do. Fuck you. “You know,” you say, smacking your chapped lips stained lightly with blood, “this looks like it would be delicious.” There’s a lot of things that i would like but I can’t have.

The winds are harsher lately, as the month moves on and the promise of daylight comes but only with time. It comes with the sharp subzero breeze that scrapes and stings my skin every time I leave the small cabin, we get traces of the sunlight when the sky turns into a vicious liliac to remind us through depression and frostbite that it still exists. I asked the moon as she poured steaming soup into my half-finished bowl, I asked her how long it would last.

“Kaamos lasts as long as it wishes.” she answered in a voice that was so stubborn but seemed as though it would crumble into dust any second.

“You never answer my questions.”

“You do not want me to.”

There’s the buzzing of the mosquitos in my ear with the heavy, laden heat of the jungle swarming me like a tangible and menacing fog. There were times when simply breathing would make it feel like you were being suffocated in the midst of everything that was happening. It was an extra layer wrapped around, a hand wrapped around your throat when you were already spitting up blood and dizzy from the concussion of that blast. It was easy to watch the way the dirt soaked up your blood, the land was fertile and soft welcomed it. The land took from you what it would, whatever you gave for it knew you would be there soon. In that moment, the ground could have opened it’s toothless maw and swallowed me up.

But it didn’t, it felt like the bones in my arms were absent as I tried to pull myself up only to be dragged to safety by somebody twice my size to safety. His legs were pale and skinny and despite the strength he had to get us both hidden they were shaking, he didn’t notice the shrapnel lodged in his back. There’s a lot of things we don’t notice but we will soon.

The branches of the trees were frosted with snow, the color of the evergreens hidden by the thick ice that had settled over it, I couldn’t tell how long I had been here. I couldn’t tell the number of days that had passed as they all melded into one I couldn’t tell you a fucking thing about this place except for what the moon had taught me. I struggled and stumbled over words at the diner as the waitress watched me with intrigue and sorrow in her eyes. Did you know she touched my hand and I didn’t move away?

I didn’t think of you either.

Her cold gray eyes, murky with sorrow, it was like she reached into my chest to tug on my heartstrings. She didn’t say anything. Does she know? I watched as her deft, decrepit hands went back to folding the silverware in cloth napkins that we really couldn’t afford to have. From time to time you can see the intentions the owner for this place might have had with influences from higher end dining but really, through all the shabbiness and the layered grime it was hard to see anything that didn’t seem broken and abandoned.

Maybe it’s just waiting for the right time. she knows. maybe i’m just waiting for mine. did you really forget me so quickly? do you think id let you leave me to rot? Anything can be cleaned up and made into something impressive. 

Even you.

Now that the river is frozen I don’t have running water, the town continues on with frozen pipes that burst open like the head of a man that tumbled 20 stories and onto the ground. The crowd gathers around him and remarks on the gruesome nature--the same remarks every time seem to repeat themselves over and over from the lips of people who had never seen each other before. Do you think tragedy opens our minds in the same way or are we all just so fucking boring that-

whatever. Ill shower at work

It never bothered me anyways, i remember getting scolded for stepping over the mess of human shaped matter instead of around it. Apparently it is common enough for americans to be killing themselves that they have fabricated some complex state of grieving for a man they never knew and never cared for. but it’s not common enough for them to walk over them. Something something disrespectful. His eyeball had been pushed out of the flattened skull by the impact and it squished under the heel of my boot. Bummer.

I had been thinking that there were wolves that were after me but instead i found a monster hiding under its fur when I skinned it. An oily and slick shadow escaped the corpse it wore, scurrying from sight and into the darkness only to exist on the peripherals of my vision. Face to face with an unknown quantity that went further than the whispers of the trees deep into the night, it was moving under the moonlight in ways you don’t see other things move. Folk tales. An entity that ripped through the veil of a nightmare and made its way into the waking world with no reason for being here.

_ Kettunahka,  _ she called me with adoration in her voice as she set a warm plate of food before me.

I never told her anything but somehow she knew.

“_Harmaa Kettu...”_

She knew too much.

“ _ Kyllä, kuu? _ ”


	4. jaeger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> details.

_ iv. _

_ “You have inherited unearthly wisdom and the mystery of blood.” _

_ — Yvan Goll _

_ “Kettu.” _She called me that and I only knew the word because of a children’s book she gave me to help me when i occasionally bought in pelts, i didn’t really ever go out with the intention to kill animals but they often came with intentions to kill me. The forest and the vastness of the subarctic land were generally advertised with the high chance of death by natural causes as long as you considered freezing to death in -50 degree weather and getting mauled by a bear, natural. death, natural or otherwise, is just the way things are. The people here mourned a poor old man who had been snowed into his house on the other side of town and froze to death only just recently.

That’s pretty fucked up that nobody checked on him for like a few weeks, huh?

I didn’t answer her, exactly. I looked up from what she made me and came face to face with the fact that i had been mistaken all along. 

“I have something for you.” She handed me a bottle of something, placing it directly into my hand.

_ “En halua sitä.” _

A raised eyebrow and a sigh. A drop in a litre of water, mix. _ “Tiedät mitä tehdä. _ Don’t break my heart, _ kettu _ and do this for me.”

My problem lies in the fact that even though i know i was wrong about the moon i still see it as undeniable truth, or perhaps she wanted this from me and perhaps the one single thing i had trust in has betrayed me or she assumed a human form to pull me away from this nameless place. She promises purpose with the small liquid. I could be wrong about being wrong. would she regard me with disdain because i doubted her, if even for a fleeting moment?

It’s been hard getting a grip of the language but I speak it better now, i speak enough to talk with those i work with but i still ignore the customers in the shop. She knew enough to make it make sense to me. Maybe none of this is real.

A briefcase, a key, a solution, and a heavy daze in my mind that only seemed to be partially lifted- they were all present as i lightly coated both sides of the pages from the men i knew and set them out to dry. Only ten pages had words appear in bleary ink with minimal information. Ah. I was here for a reason.

I put my trust in the wrong things all my life.

The taps at my windows are accompanied with the sound of claws on the glass, a mix of human mannerism and a beastly body. Vying for my attention when i couldn’t afford to part with any, your hand on the back of my head forcing me to look forward. Keeping me from stealing glances towards the hulking beasts behind the frosted windows, the way your fingers tangled in my hair makes me think you’re enjoying this too much.

it’s okay. I am too.

I clamber into bed and let the pages dry. 

Now think about the way the mosquito buzzes in your ear before the sharp slap of skin startles you. Your hand to the back of your own neck in an instant. For millions of years the mosquito evolved into a tiny monstrosity who’s horror we can’t see due to it’s miniscule size. Six needles to prep and saw through your skin in order to steal bit by bit of your essence and leave you itching all over. And also maybe with malaria. When your hand moves to squash the mosquito it’s instinctual, do you get the same feeling when you kill a man standing in your way? 

In the heavy heat, your skin glistens and your thick eyelashes lower as the sun sets. The vibrant orange sky renders the trees on the horizon into shadow like an artist had painted it black with a thick brush on canvas with broad and steady strokes. It was the only time this place actually felt secluded as the hustle was centralized at the mess halls and the only people to be walking around were the intermittent patrols and you.

You sat in an empty jeep with your fingers drumming against the steering wheel, lost in some deep thought where you weren’t actually thinking at all. For what it’s worth, even though you don’t notice I’m there I can feel that you sense it. The way the hairs on the back of your neck stand contrast your complete surprise to when I open the door on the passenger side. Your face has a hard time conveying a lot of emotions but your body does it for you instead, I see the way the vein in your neck is thrumming like you came face to face with something that frightened you. Or something.

The tapping stops as you turn to look at me.

“So… Rookie-” I start after the silence turns from awkward to something else.

“Nothing.” The drumming continues but the pace is faster, like you’re trying to influence time to move along.

“Nothing what?”

“Nothing… is happening.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t?” 

“I didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“Why are you here?”

“Nothin- ah. Uh. No reason.”

“Take us out for a ride.”

“I can’t… I don’t have the keys.” 

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a swiss knife, twirling the bulky little thing in my fingers, “You know, when I was a kid, we used to steal cars and trucks carrying cargo either from checkpoints or bases in the middle of the night.” I pretend that I didn’t hear you gasp when my arm brushed against your thigh as I undid the screws under the steering column. The plastic came off and I pointed at the wires. “Problem was that a few of us hadn’t even seen cars until we were eight and none of us knew how to steal them.” 

Do you always shiver like that when you’re touched? I cut and stripped the wires and the car came to life, first the radio turned on and the gauges rose to reveal half a tank was remaining and then the rumble of the motor shook the car. I listened as you breathed out a sigh of relief and looked around for any witnesses. If only you knew that the space around you was charged with electricity and venom, the bite of a shock and the sting of a poison made you feel like something else. something new and fresh in a sea of mundanity. i’d like us to sink our teeth into each other and race to the bleed out.

“Drive.” I said.

“How did you learn?”

“Trial and error.” i showed you my calloused hands, hands that touched the bare starter wire and made many mistakes of the like. “It’s not hard.” For the brief flash of a moment I thought of them pushing apart your bare thighs as i settle my hips in between.

“Why didn’t they just teach you how to do it?”

I had seen it in a movie once but the details weren’t exact, “Because they didn’t know. Now drive.”

I didn’t think i’d see another mission briefing for a while, I was half convinced I was already dead. 

Just glad i didn’t wake up in some mass grave, and it’s the small things that count.

She snaps her fingers at me like I’m some kind of fucking dog. and just like some kind of fucking dog I’m pulled out of my daydream and back to reality. my attention is squared and accessible. “What?”

“You have such a hard time paying attention _ kettu _. Please listen.”

“I need more food if you want me to listen.”

Gingerly she places it on my plate and i eat ravenously as I take the situation in.

They’re everywhere.


	5. glockjaw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> something special.

_ v. _

_ “Their faces I thought were knives. The way they pointed them at me. And waited. A hunter is someone who listens. So hard to his prey it pulls the weapon. Out of his hand and impales. Itself.” - Anne Carson _

I could take it as less of an insult if there wasn't so much emphasis put on the success of the mission, can she tell i'm rusted at the joints, a once well oiled machine? a dark cloud grew over my head and she referred to my time here as a sabbatical. i will have to look that up later. Oh, the moon is deceptive as she is crafty. I no longer recognize her face, but her words are the same, her voice still hinted with a tinge of familiarity. You make me wish i could place you in the tomb of memory where you came from. you make me wish i could lock you back up and swallow the key, fill my stomach with cement and sink to the bottom of a lake laden with frozen ice to hold me under, like the palm of god forcing me back to the depths. who are you?

i'm not used to the preciseness of this briefing, the moon, whoever she is was never my direct superior. shrouded and surrounded by darkness, alone in the night sky. do you feel the void around you? 

i ask no questions, i nod my head as the bowl of food slowly goes cold, half eaten. i had lost my appetite, i can't eat and remember at the same time. what was the point of sitting here for so long?

“So you want me to make friends?” It was an odd request she had proposed.

“No, not exactly. You're there to plant evidence.”

“I see. We’re bullying a bureaucrat.”

“Oversimplification seems to be your strong suit.”

“Hm, i was reluctant to admit that i wasn't listening to most of what you had to say.”

A sigh, A match struck. A cigarette lit. “You’re no fool, Frank. Do you take me for one?”

i bet this is what it's like to disappoint your mother. “No.” 

“Then don’t play games with me.”

Just when i thought i could have some fun.

At least the complexity of the situation and the departure from my usual line of expertise were what kept me attentive to the details in the file, inches thick with information to observe in the short 24 hour period. A new identity but the same name. I knew this man. i had met him once while I was here. ruddy faced and jovial. eager to greet, spoke german when he realized my Finnish was terrible. A large portion of the file was dedicated to Kommando Spezialkräfte Marine.

Frogman. 

Was I supposed to be quizzed when I arrived on site? it felt like my brain was throbbing. 

oh, he's some type of enthusiast. i ran my fingertips down the lines of my own file, a version of me that had a wife and a child that were no longer in the picture. If the child was stillborn was it ever really had? that's a question i'm not qualified to answer. i'm certain i'm not even qualified to ask it. whatever it was to me, it strained and ruptured whatever relationship i had with my wife. we’re separated. the file came with a ring i was instructed to wear. i'm sentimental now.

It was like every aspect had been taken care of, the only thing missing is the tooth filled with cyanide… unless? 

my own fingers tasted like dirt as they reached into my mouth and searched for something unfamiliar, anything loose or fresh. but not even my wisdom teeth in the back had changed, still half grown and prone to tearing up my gums every now and then as they push through. i was advised that the process of them growing in would be over by now but being lied to is a way of life. it doesn't matter, my mouth feels like it's mine. i wipe the saliva on my fingers off on my pants. This new Jaeger is no where near as impressive as I could be on paper. he (I?) enlisted at 17. what a fucking joke.

you would laugh at me if i told you the night air was cool when i arrived at the man’s door the next night. there was a buzzing tension in the atmphosphere as the bustle of guests inside moved about. it wasn't as cold as usual, it was calm and delightful. the man was short and slightly round, the years of an office job were showing on a man who once exuded strength and raw power. his face was kind-- he was kind and greeted me into the house with open arms and a smile on his face. 

“Frank,” the man addressed me, “Had I known who you were, I would have urged the town increase their attempts to welcome you tenfold.” He spoke entirely in German, as did the guests to the party the moment i stepped over the threshold. they weren't keen on excluding me from the conversation, probably not after being regaled with the stories of the false frank Jaeger that the official had read about in a mostly redacted file.

“It’s fine.” A moment of silence passed to gather my thoughts as my mind threatened to go blank. “I can only admit that I was not ready to be welcomed.”

i would squeeze in the truth wherever i could. i don't know if lying is my forte, but my focus lay solely on being genuine. i've never been saddled with a task that seemed more insurmountable than that alone.

i held the same glass of red wine in my hand all night, i answered questions and smiled. i caught the eye of a young man with short brown hair and a smile that seemed to be contagious. his hair was just long enough to grab and guide him once the door to his father’s study closed behind us. the Moon did ample research, she knew the son had a sense of adventure. she's too smart for her own good, she's been at this game for too long. 

he had a thing for married men and i just closed my eyes and thought of you.

Did you think anybody noticed when you leave the barracks in the middle of the night? You were trained for this, so of course they didn’t and even if they did were they supposed to stop you, call your name— your  _ new _ name and scold you? You could tumble out of bed and crash cymbals together and announce your departure to the entire platoon if you wanted to. You basically did when you approached me. a thin stack of smoke slid out and up like a live tendril from the corner of your mouth and we stood there in silence. silence is what we did best. we didn’t have to state we were taking comfort in each other’s presence because we both knew we did, you did know, right?

“Are you afraid of dying?” I ask you, my vision burning a hole into you skull.

“We’re in a war zone.”

“That’s not what I was asking.”

“Well I signed up for a field of work that boasts a high turnover rate.”

“Okay. And?”

“So no, I’m not afraid.”

“If i pointed a gun to your head, how would you feel?”

“Right now I’m feeling suspicious.”

“And if I pointed one at mine, how would you feel?”

“I guess I would tell you to try not to miss.” A jab at my lower range scores was a useless attempt to diffuse the charge slowly building up in the air around us, but i could feel the edges of my lips twitch into a brief smile anyways. if i reached out to touch you, you would nearly yelp from the shock.

“How would you feel?” I repeat with urgency.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Typical. I said it like a sentence I repeated a thousand times beforehand and would say a thousand more in the future. Questioning this matter of fact in a tone nearly aligned with mocking you. it’s simply in jest, nothing more.

“I don’t know!” are you annoyed by these questions? you responded rather aggressively.You watch the gun slowly come out of my holster and the only thing betraying your calm expression is your eyes.

“How would you feel if you pointed a gun to my head?” I took your warm hands and wrapped them around the handle, falling to my knees. “Come on.” my hand wrap around the barrel and with a little force i pressed it up against my forehead. I can feel your muscles locked up and frozen, like a doll with ball joints that’s stiff from years of sitting on a shelf.

“What? you’re crazy.”

“Put it in my mouth,” I let go of the barrel and leave the rest up to you. “and pull the trigger, Snake.”

You eyed my parted lips in the low light and shook your head intensely. “No, I’m not going to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t. I don’t want to.” I watch as you aim the gun away from me and shake your head. if only i could pick it part and find out what was going through it. A long moment of silence passes, I give you the chance to muster the courage and nothing comes of it.

“You’re such a fucking disappointment.” As I stand back up your eyes are cast down and away, looking at the long stretch of our shadows along the ground. You give up the gun before I have a chance to disarm you, shame and anger and something else radiate from your skin in a sharp heat in the moment my hands brushed against yours. “On your knees.”. 

This basic standard issue semi-auto traced your features starting from the middle of your forehead, to your temple and along your sharp jaw. You kiss the muzzle as it presses up against your lips.

“Is it loaded?” you ask to no avail. what benefit would it have you to know? You can only assume until it’s over, until the man standing over you has chosen not to blow your head off. The thumb of my free hand slips between your lips and your tongue welcomes it, lapping up the taste of sweat and dirt and grease as it pressed up against your tongue. It’s not enough to make you forget about the barrel of the gun resting against your cheek but it’s calming nonetheless. There’s always something in that mouth of yours. 

When I pull it back from your mouth a long trail of saliva was illuminated by the dim lighting, and without wiping it away I push your hair back and out of your face.

i came in his mouth and was swallowed up by disappointment, even in the dark he doesn't look like you. i memorized where the light reflects off of the angles of your face. i would do that with any friend of mine, however-- you just happen to be the only one.

He leaves me alone afterwards stumbling out of the room hiding his shame behind his hands, i placed the small package in the drawer of the impressive desk and left the room. if all jobs were this easy i may have gotten into the wrong business from the get go.

downstairs, they didn't even notice I was gone. Sakari had been wondering but he still embraced me, face even redder than before and he hands me another glass and a cigar. i put down the old glass of wine and thank him. in my mind i wonder what will happen to him. 

“Sakari, for the life of me i cannot remember what you do.”

“How could you forget! Or maybe i didn't tell you, I am an advisor for the UN!” he was yelling right into my ear like some kind of drunken fool. 

“I'm so forgetful, must've had too much to drink.”

the Moon has always been around, what she plans may not be something i can comprehend.


	6. beckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somethings should be left well alone.

_ vi. _

_ “Let us believe – the fangs do not quite close.” _

_— _ _Ernest Bryll_

The other Frank is just the life i live now, the people of the town greet me and welcome me. i'm not one of them and never will be, but after being known in a superficial capacity with a dossier filled with lies they’ve warmed up to me after months of what i can only assume was tolerance to my rough behavior. 

stolen valor, but not a complete fraud.

maybe i have to leave here soon.

I woke up with the feeling that somebody was at the door, waiting for me. The snow was piled up high from the storm the night before and the man who i helped with the boxes on the lake stood there with a blank stare and handed me a long package.  _ Ad astra,  _ it read, Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean. I looked straight into the other man’s eyes and he reeked like somebody i knew but i knew it wasn’t him. None of the substance that he exuded was there, he was an empty shell of a person and maybe my mind was playing tricks on me warping things into what i know in the midst of all that i don’t. i placed my hand his shoulder and gripped tight. i could feel the wool of his sweater in between the calluses on my hands, i could feel the toned muscle underneath that as well. i could see him try to ignore the first contact we have made since we have been “working” together. he looks right through me and i'm okay with that.

he just reminds me of you.

he gave me the weather report, “A cold and stiff breeze and clouded skies tonight, -18 degrees. Perhaps you should stay home and read to pass the time. I have something that might interest you.” his voice was a growl of steel wool digging into the mircofissures of a sore throat. he handed me a file so deceptively heavy and sealed, i watched the man walk off into the distance and disappear into the tree line in the opposite direction of where he parked his car. i refused to question it further and let him be. i can and will consider him a roommate until he moves his car. i can and will charge him for parking if he refuses to pay rent. the next time i checked out the window, however, the truck was long gone. it was such a gratifying thing to watch the way he slipped in and out through the folds of reality.

i don't keep a mirror outside of the bathroom because i can't stand to look at myself. when the cold water hits my face in the morning, i catch myself looking into the image of a man i don't recognize anymore. did i ever recognize him? I peer in closer, every time inspecting my face like i had just gotten it today. i don't know what's different exactly but i know that something is off. there are only so many times you can break something apart before pieces go missing when you try to put it back together. drag your fingers along the cracks and feel them dip into the spaces of shards lost over the years.

i think of where i left them. 

i wonder if they will ever come back.

I wonder how you’ll look the next time i see you, David.

Getting through the file was a slog, words and words and words and i felt the struggle building up and compounding. I didn’t know how to read until i turned 18. A man with sunlight for hair, peering behind sunglasses taught me. almost like he was hiding himself from his own brilliance. I know he wished he didn’t volunteer as he grew more and more frustrated, but not all of us grow up with the privillege to learn. A lot of us had to fight for each and every single day and most of us were abandoned before we turned four.

Cannon fodder before we were even turned into soldiers. I felt vulnerable sharing this with him but he felt vulnerable as well. So many similarities and only a world between us.

Weeks before I left he handed me this sweater. Black with a hood. “ _ In case you’re ever cold _ .” He told me. I feel like he knew. I slept holding it to my chest, like a child holding tight onto a toy for fear it might get whisked away when he closes his eyes, except i’m just grown man who had never received a gift before. I just dont know how to act.

I’m wearing it now and i wear it every day when i leave. I wore it here on my first day in this tiny little village and a man gifted me with a blue coat. This sweater is lucky.

He called me a fool and left me standing in the snow for 10 minutes before returning with the coat.

“I don’t have money to pay you.” I told him.

He scoffed, and held the jacket open so i could shrug it on. “ _ Idiotti” _

I had a feeling I already knew what that word meant.

“No money.” 

I felt warm after putting it on, however, I wasn’t sure if it was the jacket or something else. I would trade another lifetime of pain for another second of kindness.

Sakari’s son sought me out again, but this time as a friend, something had happened to his father and he needed a shoulder to cry on. I didn’t want to be that shoulder but the other Frank would have allowed it. He was a leader who could be relied on by his men versus a loner who inspired rumors of “insert whatever the fuck people people wanted to believe about Gray Fox”. He cried for a long time huddled up against me but my shoulder remained dry.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked him, uncertainty clouding my voice.

“...Yes…” Matti replied. He left a long and uncomfortable pause of silence between us. I hate this.

“Are you ready to talk about it?” I am picking my words carefully, I am picking them like the other Frank would. Actual Frank would have said nothing. Actual Frank probably would have tried to solicit another blowjob out of this situation without even bothering to talk about it.

“It’s my father…”

Okay.

He stared at me, expecting a response.

“...what about him?”

He sobbed suddenly, it was apparent he needed acting lessons. “Something terrible has happened…”

Yeah well no shit, “Oh… What happened?” Maybe I should have asked if his dad was okay. It’s too late to say that now.

“He’s under investigation… for something, I don’t know what.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Hm.”

“I could really use somebody to be around right now.”

“But you don’t know what he’s being accused of?”

“They wouldn’t tell me.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Uh.. i guess.”

“Maybe I can see if i can help him.”

“Oh, you wish to help  _ him _ ?”

“Maybe.”

“What about me?”

“Well, what about you?”

“Do you not want to be around me?”

I scrambled my brain for an excuse, “I’m married.”

“Did you get married between last week and today?”

“...Yes. I mean, I’ve been married.” God this sucked. Honestly i had forgotten about the fact that he was fake married when the whole thing was going down. “Why do you need help?” overdramatic, this is what a bureaucrat’s son was like, then?

“I’m hurt-- emotionally.”

“You can stay for a while.” being around this guy felt like rubbing sandpaper on my brain.

“My father said you were curt…”

I’m not Kurt, I am Frank. I stayed silent and he continued talking. What is it with people and their infatuation with emotionally distant men? Am I guilty of that too?

I let him use my blanket in and let him rest at first there were attempts to wrangle me in with him but being around him was grating. I did my best to be as close to him as i possibly could remain, something about him told me he might be useful for later, and while i don’t care about him on a personal level, I know that other Frank Jaeger would do everything it took to get the mission completed just like I would. I know the other me better now. 

We did enough to tire him out, his body felt nothing like what I imagined yours would feel like.

I sat by the fireplace and stoked the flames for a couple hours after he fell asleep. I made some food and left the extra for him on the stove. I hoped when i came back he would be gone.

I visited a shop and asked the lady if she had seen anything. She heard rumors that they took him to a penitentiary in Helsinki. Am i supposed to follow him there? What are the limitations of my mission? Did I do everything I need to do?

The parameters are vague and I only need to be convincing. I seek advice. I will go to the moon tomorrow. Tonight, she hides behind the clouds, refusing to peer out leaving me surrounded in darkness on the walk back.

Glowing eyes on the treelines. There were wolves but with them was something more sinister, are they governed by it or are they merely companions?

I go and check her cabin anyways, if tonight is the night i’m consumed by these predators then so be it. I don’t much care for the job i’m doing right now anyways. 

Empty. Just like I expected.

The lights were still on in the cabin when I returned which filled me with a sense of dread, to go back and have to deal with Matti was something I was hoping to avoid, for some reason he was drawn to me and i was repelled. He wasn’t you and with every second I spend with him i'm reminded of it. The cold air rushed in as the door banged open, the howl of the wind so frosty and cold ushered in a light dusting of the newly laden snow onto the wood floors of the cabin. It took force to shut the door closed and lock it back up. If the winds decide to get worse, I may have to start barring it shut. 

Matti sat by the fire, the poker in his hand and in his other hand were the classified files i had pertaining to my missions. I only kept it for reference even though the instructions were to burn it. Stupid. There was too much to memorize and live by for me to absorb it all so quickly… 

“You’re looking through my stuff?” An invasion of privacy isn’t something new, but after having spent a long time without it, it was jarring to experience it again.

“I was looking for something to do until you returned.”

“Have you considered leaving instead of overstaying your welcome?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“You have no idea what you want.” I took a step towards him and he took a step back, hitting the wall. Reflexively he brought up the Poker to defend himself.

“I’ve read your files around here.  _ Kettu _ , what kind of name is that?”

“That’s not my actual name.”

“Then what is your actual name?”

“It’s Frank. Frank Jaeger-- don’t give me that look, listen, that’s my actual name.”

“You never wanted to help my father, Frank.”

I couldn’t argue the validity of that statement, so I stayed silent.

“Are you responsible for the trouble he’s in?”

“Have you read the file?”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Why?”

“It was my job.” the weapon in his hand lowered when he heard that.

“What benefit does having him in prison help you?”

“It doesn’t. It was just my job.” No hard feelings. I moved to take my jacket off and Matti’s muscles tensed up. “Relax. Let’s talk about this. You like to talk.”

He didn’t let go of the stupid metal rod even when he sat down, warily. i dont know what he expects to achieve with that against somebody like me.

“Why keep secrets from me? I could have helped you if you asked.”

“I barely knew you then.” I barely knew him now.

“What is this all about?” he successfully changed the subject before lingering on what he had said mere moments before.

“It’ll help me explain much better if you tell me what you’ve read.”

He sighed and wrapped my blanket tighter around him, his grip eased on the makeshift weapon the very same moment it looked like he might have had some revelation. “You’re a fraud. Impersonating somebody in the military is… it’s bad, you can go to jail for it you know.”

“Is that it?”

“Jail is pretty awful, I don’t think that’s a punishment to be taken lightly.”

“Is that all you read?” I had more skill in making him feel invalid than he did in whatever the fuck he just did in an attempt to intimidate me. “I just came here to get away from things to search for answers.”

“Answers? What things?” He asked as if I was going to acknoweldge his questions, when i didn’t he sighed and continued on, “I don’t like being used.”

“You told me that you did.”

“I - ah, yes but not like this.” He stammered, “You obviously don’t like me anyways. It’s quite obvious that I’ve been a fool.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Frank…” He sounded like he was going to say something else but then decided against it, He got up from the chair, the wood scraping on the floorboards echoed in my mind as he got up. “I have to go home.”

“Will you make it home safely? The storm is harsh, roads are dangerous. ”

“I wish that type of thing actually mattered to you.”

“Maybe you are a fool,” I paused, watching his expression shift from a meddley of somber emotions to confusion and slight anger. “thinking that you don’t matter to me. You’re the first person to know and stay.”

“Pardon?”

“I never liked this part of the job, the lying.” I took a deep breath and exhaled a soft sigh, it had been a long while since i have acted, i dont know how to pick and choose my words, I can no longer play off on my childhood innocence on a nameless soldier who was a blank slate for me to write his execution order on. I’m frustrated with myself, my speaking skills have faltered over the years. “You’re the only person who’s ever known.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to say anything, I don’t know if I want you to right now if you let me talk but as myself. As Frank. The real Frank. I want you to know me as me.”

“Why?”

“I never liked the thought of you not knowing who I am.”

He looked at me with uncertainty it wasn’t the type that made me think I’ve said anything wrong yet, and maybe I was mistaken but i had also a flash of hope on his face. 

“I’ve known who you were when I first came around here, I just felt like I got lucky to have the secret to getting you to fall into my lap.” I got up from where I sat and rounded the table and stood beside him, his muscles tensed up as i moved but they relaxed the moment I ran my fingers through his light brown hair. Having shared intimacy prior was the key to dissipating his original tension and converting it into something more like arousal. Some people like the dangerous side of things. I leaned against the table, sitting slightly on the edge of it. “Maybe I’m a little selfish for letting myself take advantage of what I knew. But I realized what I was doing and attempted to pull away emotionally before we got caught up in each other.” in some web of lies. I leaned in, only inches away from his face and smiled. “You would do the same.”

He gulped and shook his head yes, he didn’t really need to use words. He melted every time I touched him.

“Stay the night.”

“I don’t know if it’s wise to do so.”

“I wasn’t asking you to.”

“Oh… are we playing it like that?”

“I remember you telling me that’s how you like to play.”

“I’ll stay. But you must come with me to Helsinki on Wednesday.”

“Why?”

“Prove to me you care.”

“I care.”

“Then I’ll pick you up in the morning and we’ll fly there.”

“What will we do?”

“I have business to attend to at the bank.”

“I was worried you were going to make me see you father in prison.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Seems like a course of action you would take.”

“Was that in my psychological profile? I didn’t see that anywhere.”

“Why do I have to go with you?”

“I don’t want to go alone.”

“That’s fine, I’ll go.”

Matti closed his eyes, leaned forward and rested his head against my hip, “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“You’ll learn to trust me when you’re ready.” I touch his cheek with my knuckle and rubbed lightly and as lovingly as i could manage without throwing up in my own mouth.

  
  



	7. night market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we thrive in what we find comfort in.

_ vii. _

_ "We are trapped in meanings that circulate like blood. _

_ The sword descends." _

_ -Rosanna Warren _

  
  


“I think the people need to know about you, Frank.”

“I think the less they know the better…”

“Well,  _ I _ think I can be convinced to keep quiet.”

“How?” blackmail so blatant and blunt it could have knocked me unconscious. such a lame attempt at mimicking a politician.

“I know how to handle people like you.”

“Oh, how’s that?”

“Everybody has a leash that can be pulled on.”

“I don’t have money to pay you if that’s what you want.”

“My silence can be bought in other ways…”

“I’m listening.”

He looked like a crazed dog with that look behind his eyes, he grabbed my hands by the wrists and placed them on his hips. We were in a fancy hotel in the capital and the luxury was overwhelming. i suspected yet another elaborate ruse where he convinced me to fuck him with the motivation of said blackmail. “Can you get rid of somebody for me?” I wrapped my arms around his waist and he pressed his groin up against me. Aroused. Gross.

“As in kill them?” I was a lot more surprised than i sounded.

“Please don’t use that term with me.”

“If you want somebody killed you  _ will  _ have to say it clearly. the last thing i want to think about is the issue in Ibiza.”

“What happened in Ibiza?” Silence. “Okay, fine. Can you do that for me?” For some reason he insisted on staying glued to me.

“You should give me more information.” 

“Do you really need the backstory?” He attempted to kiss me but was ultimately discouraged. “There’s an auditor I promised I would take care of for my boss but he’s stubborn.” Matti continued on about how he was caught in between some sort of issue with embezzlement from the bank he worked at with the incessant insistence that he was not involved in any way. “Am I to tell my boss and a handful of executives that I was too morally uptight to sign something for them? I would lose my job and my father has-- he had-- an image to uphold. I was caught up.”

“You're just young and an idiot.”

“Wait, how old are you?”

“I don't remember.”

“You can't have possibly forgotten, Frank. What year were you born in?”

“Do you want what it says on my documents or what I think my birth year was.”

“Does your life really have to be that complicated?”

“I think I was born in 69 or 70.”

“What do your documents say?”

I laughed and asked “depends on which one you want to look at. I have some dates going far back, for reasons I don't care to speak about.”

“You're younger than me.”

“I'm not surprised.”

“You feel older.”

“Again, i'm experiencing a complete lack of surprise.” At 21, he spent six months in the penthouse of the Venetian in Macau. At 21, I spent six months shackled and sleeping on a concrete floor as a prisoner of war. We are not the same. i beg the moon to release me from my contract. “I can do what you want.”

“You don't need much convincing.”

“Consider me a workaholic.” That was a new word I learned in the past 3 days i’ve been exploring the modern and civilian world. All talk about work-life balance and how obsessed some international bankers are with their jobs. they even sleep in their offices in little cots sometimes. oh. the horror. as much as i might mock it, the concept that people who live lives outside of the battlefield may share a specific struggle let me indulge in the fantasy of feeling human for a short while.

“That's cute.”

I suppose maybe it felt nice to be considered cute. “I need more information.” I needed an excuse to pack up and go.

“Right now?”

“Right now.” I was itching to get out of close proximity with him. “What does he look like?”

Freedom. The air is warm in a way I haven't felt since I have moved here, even in the winter it felt like I could roam around without my jacket but I felt like it would be foolish to do so. One thing I have learned was that around here the weather was eternally plotting to find you at your weakest. It cripples you, it feels like I could never escape the extremes. From the tropical to the savannah to the tundra. respite came in my missions that took me elsewhere. home is where the heart is and the heart is barren and unforgiving or swarming with bloodsucking parasites. there's a special comfort in sleeping inside a mosquito net canopy, it always felt oddly regal. In english picture books with kings and queens, they used to have something similar. i don't know what they're called or what the story was about but i could close my eyes sometimes and pretend that i was one of them. kids are fucking stupid. i was no exception.

The description wasn't the best, the more I looked for him the more I realized that many people fit said description. Maybe an auditor looked a specific way but I don't even know what they do. Matti was a decent artist but the sketch did not help much. I would have to just trust my instinct and follow around the closest man that fit and hope the schedule lined up. Coffee at 6 am at a local shop, he couldn't provide the exact order the mark would make so it was more guess work from there. I don't know what his job entails so I couldn't make the assumption that his coffee order would be a specific way, unfortunate. Matti really is good for nothing. I had left mid day yesterday for no reason, I spent the entire night tracking which led me to three separate neighborhoods. I had tried the phonebooks but this man is a more recent resident and when i went to the old address that was listed under his name, it was an empty lot. Right. 

I guess.

I'm not going to say that's suspicious but it may be suspicious.

The bar was noisy when I walked in, it had a warm atmosphere despite the high end look of the place. Matti had clothed me properly for the trip as he had a massive distaste for my fashion sense. Lack thereof. Whatever. I don't care what I wear. I prefer a uniform for one reason, it's less to think about when I wake up.

My sleeves were neatly folded up to right below my elbows and the top button of my shirt was undone. I wore it the way Matti did after he got off of work, spending time with him was grueling, but easy work is hard to come by these days.

I sat down next to a man in his 50’s with a bland but proper face, “Sir?”

He looked over his scotch and towards me, “Yes?”

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

He shook his head no and faced forward again, cigarette in his hand and ash tray in front of him. I pulled out my own pack and he pushed the tray so it sat between us. “What brings you to Helsinki?” 

“I don’t look Helsinki born and raised to you?”

His smile was tinged with amusement, “No.”

I touched my face, feigning surprise, “What part gave it away?” My skin was much darker than the regular scandinavian faire, but surely, that wasn’t the reason.

“You carry yourself a certain way.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me where I’m from?”

“Well, I can’t ask every question first, can I?”

“No, you can't.” Valid point. “Business brings me here. Are you from here?”

“No, not really.”

“Business for you as well?”

“Yes. A long assignment.”

“What a drag.”

“Tell me about it, a lot of my work is parsing through jargon and data.”

“Right now it feels like that for me, except with resumes and references.”

“Are you a hiring manager?”

“Ahh, no.  _ But _ my firm is currently hiring.”

“Is this you offering me a job?”

I laughed, placed a cigarette between my lips and ordered a beer. “Unless you can design weapons, I have no interest in recruiting you.” The flame of the lighter danced up from its metal body. “But if you know somebody…”

“Sadly, I don’t know anybody who would be of use to you unless you’re looking for numbers man.”

“You know a good finance guy?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Pass along his contact details if you have them or I can give you card and you can have him call me directly.” Pat pat pat, oh, you would you look at that I don’t have anymore of those business cards I don’t carry because they don’t exist. I shrug.

“No need to pass along information, I’m Niko. I can be your financial analyst.”

“It’s hard to say no to a man who’s telling me I should be his boss.”

“When you put it like that…”

“Listen, Niko, when you’re done with your current assignment, you should come and find me but only if you want to work with a company that does what we do.”

“And what is that which you do, exactly?”

“....Manufacturing… of things, weapons.”

He glanced at me skeptically, “Dangerous line of work.”

“It wouldn’t be for you.”

“But for you.”

“It’s not too bad compared to my last job.”

“Oh, and what was that?”

I didn’t really want to say I’m a mercenary but I was drawing close to a near blank. “I was a soldier.”

“How long did you serve?” He eyed me curiously. To somebody who didn’t know me I look both younger and older than what I am. There are two wolves inside me.

“A long time.”

It was clear from his reaction that he wouldn’t believe my actual answer so I had to make up what I felt like was a believable number.

“10 years.”

“How old are you?”

“...Twenty six.”

“You enlisted at 16?”

“It’s standard in Vietnam.” I say this like I actually know. I don’t know. I haven’t stepped foot in my motherland since I was sold by some gang that i peddled street foods in Can Tho for. 

“I wasn’t really aware of that. I apologize for my ignorance.”

“Why apologize, how could you have known?”

“I couldn’t have.”

“We  _ did _ just meet. If it helps, I forgive you and your lack of worldly understanding.”

“Ah, you’re so kind, your acceptance of my apologies has my heart and mind soaring through the air.” He wasn’t too much of a looker, honestly, a plain face that bordered on what you can consider handsome but it was the way that emotion manipulated his features is what really caught my eye.

“Has anybody ever told you that you’re funny?” My voice was playful, to me it felt like I was just trying to get something out of this man but to anybody listening it might have just sounded like I was trying to get laid... which is besides the point.

His expression sobered before he answered, “No.”

“Shame. It would have done you good to know.”

“I think I benefited far more from being told that I’m too serious and that I lacked humor.”

“Well, you never know. Maybe I’m the one that’s wrong and you’re only fun with a couple of drinks in you.”

“Now you sound more like everybody else in my life.” A nod of approval from him and a hearty swig of his ale. “Feels more like home now.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Want what?”

“I can sound more like everybody else you already know or…” Leaning in, I looked around the bar like I had a secret. I felt like James Bond, except I knew nothing about the character aside from the fact that he was drowning in pussy no matter where he went, “I could sound like myself.”

“What does sounding like yourself entail?”

“Sounding like a ruggedly handsome man with stories to share that will have you holding onto your seat.”

“You don’t come off as rugged as you could be.”

“Niko, do you take me for some kind of animal? I have the decency to dress up nice for a job.”

His eyes were bulging-- damn near popped out of their sockets, his skin once a lovely pale shade of white with a hearty red tint on the cheeks had long gone purple approximately four minutes ago. I pushed off of him, my grip finally loosened around his neck and on top of this entire situation, I got an erection. Are you fucking kidding me.

You see, this is  _ why _ I like blades. It gives me the range I like to work with while allowing me some space for depersonalization. I like what I do for a living but when it comes to getting close and personal-- whatever. I would rather not think about it.

I’ll have to find Matti and let him know.

It’s done.

He doesn’t realize the type of fallout that will come from a swift disappearance like this one.

I leave the apartment and make a collect call on a payphone. The moon answers and she sounds upset but understanding. After experiencing it for the second time, I’m now certain this is what it’s like to have a mother. 

“I’ll take care of it,  _ kettu _ . Just leave him there and keep doing what you’re doing.” She sounds annoyed but regardless of what she’s saying I dare to hope that she actually cares for my wellbeing.

“But is what I’m doing right?”

Dial tone.

I wasn’t asking for the morality of the situation, fuck knows that there is none involved. I just wanted to know if this is what I’m meant to be doing. Maybe her lack of answer is all I need to figure it out, but taking that into consideration makes me feel like I know less than I did before I called her.


	8. flooded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pawn rarely makes it to the end of the board.

_ viii _ .

_ And a snake was my desire _

_ Crawling among the crags of the shadow _

_ Toward the statue of lillies of your body. _

_ -Delmira Agustini _

Maybe I was wrong, I didn’t really expect some type of celebration. We had spent a few weeks here and realistically, I don’t think I will have the jobs that I was working in the village back when I return. Matti said that he’d make sure I’d be able to keep them but he’s been praising me non-stop for the disappearance of a particular financial auditor and really, all it does is make me miss doing what I’m good at. Stocking shelves at a small store is not what I’d consider as my calling and honestly I can’t say it’s anybody’s calling in particular. Matti was definitely… out there for the most part, while many of his collegues were aware of the fact that we had come to this opulent little party together, nobody actually believed that we were  _ together. _

I normally don’t really have trouble with these kinds of things, military conventions akin to America’s DADT is just your basic universal standard in places like those which I’ve worked in. No matter which country you fight for, whichever banner you choose to fly, the overall message I’ve come across is that they all still hate a particular type of person. You learn to adapt to those expectations and when you have a man on your arm in public, proclaiming his adoration for you, his friends don’t believe it and say ‘Why don’t you leave this poor man alone, Matti, you’re drunk maybe we should get you a cab back to the hotel.’

“No no no nonononoooooo” He slurred and leaned heavily on my shoulder, “He IS my ride home. You don’t understand.”

“Very funny.” They grabbed him by the shoulder and apologized to me, “I hope his behavior doesn’t offend you.” 

A debate on how to react to the situation sparks inside of me, I’m not entirely certain on how to handle it, if I had him sent home I would be free but would it be worth the hours afterwards that I would be berated? “It doesn’t offend me, I find him…. charming.” A grimace not so easily hidden but through the champagne and the bustling bodies it passed well enough that they allowed him to stay with me.

“This is Frank.” Matti smiled, resting his head on the top of mine. He was much taller than I was, in fact, most people here were.

“Oh, so you’re Frank, the German?”

“Partially.”

“How are you part Frank?”

“I’m part German.” Probably. I don’t know the ancestry of my father, he was a white man who committed crimes against humanity while on duty. I only knew him through my mother’s hatred. The German part is other Frank, fake Frank Jaeger that felt a lot more real than I did at times. I just happened upon a colony and picked up the language at a young age. We can all pretend to be what we want to be, but when it comes down to it, our true identity will find a way to pound through the cracks of the facade.

“You’re the soldier.”

“Special forces.”

“So what, they’re all soldiers.”

“I figured it would be important to differentiate how much better I am than the people you know, like your brother.”

“Ah, have you worked with my brother?”

“No.” A shot in the dark and it hit the target.

“Oh. How do you know of him?”

“Let’s go Matti, introduce me to somebody else.” It felt like a tense conversation but it was more boring than anything else. I can manage boring better than most people, 36 hour posts on empty buildings with nobody there to relieve you for an extra 12 hours after that? Done. But listening to somebody like him, I would rather move on and take in more of this world I was normally not privy to.

“Ooookayyy.” His voice was singsong-y and there were certain times where I didn’t hate him as much as I usually did, he was more bearable when drunk but maybe that was because he seemed like nothing like his usual insufferable self. Champagne flowed and while everything was moving and fun I couldn’t help but feel stagnant. I peeled his iron grip and tore away from the crowd to take a moment and stand in the cool midnight air. 

My breath hung in the cold before slowly drifting away, the heat from all of those bodies had started to bother me after spending so long in a specific type of isolation. I had been buying packs of cigarettes versus rolling them like I used to, more trips to the store to make up for more smoke breaks so I could spend some fucking time alone. I stood on the curb of the sidewalk and watched the cars pass by with a cigarette lit in between my fingers. It wasn’t until minutes later that I took the first drag and grimaced. Smoking socially is a thing, but smoking nowadays felt like a reason to get out of the social expectations that have been placed upon me by my current circumstances. Hell, some days I don’t even smoke I just let the ciggy burn for a bit and allow myself some time to do some deep breathing exercises.

Maybe, I miss the boring parts of doing what I used to do.

Jensen cracked a wild grin on his face, “What would happen if there was a flash flood that killed the shack and all of us in our sleep?” He had been spewing theoreticals for the past three days and they had been growing increasing morbid with time. There were 11 days left in our assignment at the outpost deep in the jungle and I had the distinct feeling that Jensen was not going to make it through this with most of his mind intact. This was a special type of assignment a la Lord of the Flies except you have a few more loose screws and trained operatives thrown into the mix. When these orders were handed out, I could only think of the book Miller had given me to read as an assignment only six months prior.

“You know Frank,” Master Miller was the only person who called me by my name on base, but it wasn’t always like that, “one day you’re going to see how fucking right I was.”

I leaned back in my chair, balancing on the back two legs and eyed him suspiciously, “About what?” Even when leaned back, I could see the red marks all over the writing assignment I had handed from last night. My heart dropped a little, the effort that I put into it was essentially for nothing, Kazuhira Miller did not dish out grades for effort. I’m a simple fool for even entertaining the thought that my participation would be enough. At this point, I had gone fucking eighteen years without knowing how to read so why was it imperative that I learn it now?

Probably so I could use words like that.

“About everything.” He seemed like he was frayed today, something must have set him off earlier and this was about as unhinged as I would ever really see him. A wolfish, crazed look on his face. I remember when he told me that we were like brothers, more similar than we could both ever imagine. I hope he’s right. I hope when we’re no longer working with each other, he will be okay. That’s the most I can ever hope for anybody in our line of work. “So you have to start paying attention when I tell you things.” He tossed me a book.

I flipped through the pages and sighed, “This looks hard.”

“If I don’t challenge you, you will never get better and you will become stagnant. When you become stagnant, you’ll never be worth anybody’s time.”

Ever since then, I’ve learned to lean into clues from the most subtle of hints. But my stubbornness does tend to get the best of me.

In the small shack we were essentially trapped in, I crumpled a sheet of paper into a tight ball and whipped it at Jensen, hitting his ear. “Shut the fuck up.” Only 11 days left until we get back to base and I can order somebody to dig a hole and bury his head in it. I could have been doing important things, but this assignment was more of a move to humble me after being given my most recent promotion. The second only to Big Boss sounded really cool until Austria was too hot to interfere and there was specialist trapped there who was supposed to be in charge of a squad of rookies. And here. I. Was.

“What, why?” He rubbed his ear and looked at me with a sorry face and buck teeth. “Just because I say it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

“You make me wish it would.” A voice rang out, terse and with a peculiar lilt to his tone that straddled the line of monotony and otherwise. I could hear the mosquitos buzzing in my ear in the responding silence. I noted every day that you had spoken. Today was the first and it was about wishing all of your comrades and yourself would die.

I allowed some time for the current conversation to be forgotten, which meant whenever Jensen bought up a new questionable scenario that was answered with groans, before i sat down across from you. Nearly a half and hour passed before you finally acknowledged me with words. “What?”

“What do you mean, what?” Why break the silence between us now?

“What do you want?”

I don’t answer and keep staring at you. There were six other people in the shack all caught up in their own bullshit. My job was just to make sure they weren’t dead at the end of two weeks, whatever they got themselves into in the mean time was none of my immediate concern. Most were just excited to spend time around me. You shift uncomfortably but you try really hard to stifle it, I could tell you have a lot of practice in repressing things but there’s always room or improvement. If I don’t challenge you…

I watch the way you cross your arms and slump back in your shitty wooden chair, you look away and I keep my eyes trained on you. Eventually, you give in stand up. “I’m going for a walk.” Grumble gumble grumble.

Somebody else calls out “Stay in the perimeter, Snake.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

I smirk as you leave. Such a fresh face for somebody seasoned enough to claim special forces in his resume. I wanted to shove my hands through your chest and through the gaps of your ribs. I wanted to feel your beating heart move in my calloused hands and the squish of the organ as I squeezed it. Pulling a trigger. Tear it out. I wanted to be your friend.

I think about the look on your face when you come back from your walk a lot, to this day it was the first time I’d really seen your expression wrought with genuine surprise.

The squad had moved outdoors and I held a cloth in place over Jensen’s head. Guppy smiled and waved at you as you pushed past the others who were blocking your view. “What are you doing?” 

Guppy shifts his weight from side to side with a liter of water in his hands. He looks at me and then he looks at you and then he looks back at me. “Water boarding Jensen…”

“But… why?” You look at me and I smile.

we share a moment in silence, it felt like everybody around us melted away. “We’re bored.” i answered, finally.

“Bored?”

“We want to see who lasts the longest. If you tap out, you can't go again until everybody else has went.”

“Tap out?”

“Don't worry, it's consensual. Isn't that right Jensen?” I smack his face through the cloth and he piped up and spoke in agreement. “Most fun he’s had since he’s been here.”

“This is torture.”

“Let's call it preparation for the inevitable.”

“I don't want any part in this, Fox.” Maybe a part of you thought we were going to get into trouble for this.

“You’re missing out on all the fun.”

“Yeah, no part of this is fun.”

“To you.” I smack Jensen’s face again, “You ready?” I catch a glance of your face before you turn and leave. beat fucking red. didn't think something like this would make you so angry. The bottle slowly poured onto the cloth and I started the timer. There were times where you would look through the dirty window but I pretended not to notice you. When we all got back as the sun was going down you excluded yourself from conversation, we wrote down record times. We shared first night watch. The insects buzzed all around us, attracted by the fire that we lit to sit by, some did better off with settling on sticky, sweaty skin but it wasn't long before they were swatted away or killed.

We sat in silence for 3 hours. 

Your hair was a tangled mess, sticking to your forehead and brow. 

“You're fresh.” I remember telling you, to break the silence.

“What? …Oh. Yeah.” Your voice sounded like it was grating against your throat. You sounded thirsty.

“When were you recruited?”

“Maybe a month ago.”

“I see.”

“Do I act like i’m green?” You shifted on the log you sat on, “I was in the Army beforehand…” You yearned for me to recognize your experience.

“Just the Army? Jensen was a- what do you call it? A Marine?”

“He’s just about as stupid as one. I was special forces.”

“What's so special about it?”

“A lot.”

“Too classified to tell me?”

“Maybe.”

“How many war crimes did your country make you commit?”

“None.”

“So you can tell me that much or you're lying to me.”

“Does it matter?”

“Not to me.” A long silence passes between us, like a caravan of ghosts passing through cutting us off until they moved past. I take off my headband and toss it to you. For a soldier with the fastest reaction time marks, You didn't move until it landed in your lap. “Sometimes they forget to give you these from the get go.”

“...I thought you had to earn these.”

“Not really, it's a rumor to instill competition between the newbies.”

My bandana was sweaty but you still wrapped it around your head, over the hair sticking to your forehead.

“You uh, you need to push your hair back.”

“What?”

“you need to- never mind.” getting up to show you was a mistake but I did it anyways. I walked towards you and grabbed you by your hair and jerked your head angled backwards. “You're hopeless.” I pull the kerchief down and pull out sweaty hair pasted to your skin and slick them back before pulling your bandana back up again. “You don't have much room to be calling Jensen stupid.”

“Don't you need one?”

“I'll just get another one.” Something about the jungle inspires sweat to run directly into the eyes, I’m just looking out for the rookie. “This one looks better on you than it does on me.”

Did you know your ears are the first thing to turn red? “I think I like the color.”

“You think?”

“Maybe.”

“I don't think that you think, Rookie.” I sit back on my side of the fire and leered at you through the flames, “I want a red one.” 

“Red would look good on you.”

“I know.”

“Fair enough.”

When I went to sleep that night I woke up bothered and hard. I dreamt of a snake with arms and legs. I dreamt of that snake wrapped around me. I dreamt of that snake with eyes rolling back into his head. 

I dreamt that you crawled under my covers with me and let me touch you in places you never let another man touch. The ground beneath us opened up and swallowed us whole. Your body wet with sweat and salt as i dragged my tongue over it and some other things. I woke up and had to lie there and collect my thoughts to calm down. I've been meaning to ask you, all these years, if you had the same dream I did.

I think you did.

I sat down across from you as you were playing yourself in chess and you barely acknowledged me even when i started moving around the black pieces around on those turns. I didn't really know how to play it, but you would outline the shape it could move on the board and i tried to figure it out from there. 

“Do you play a lot?” I asked.

You shrug, “A bit.”

“You're good.” I accepted that I lost terribly however the game felt pretty unfair considering Snake was good enough to play both sides.

“You're just bad.” So this is what it felt like to spar against me.

“My only defense is that this was my first time.”

“Black was set to win in 3 moves before you joined.”

“I don't know what any of the pieces are called.”

“Yeah, this piece is called a Knight, not a horsey.”

“Listen, that's a fucking horse.”

“That’s besides the point, just because a piece looks like something else doesn't mean it’s called that. It's also applicable the other way around.”

“The other way around?”

“The other way around.”

“What?”

“What does this piece look like?” You held up a bishop.

“I don't fucking know, a lamp?”

“A lamp?”

“Yeah, a lamp.”

“Uh, no… This is a bishop.”

“It doesn't look like a bishop- actually it might, I don't know what those look like.”

“Well, that's kind of my point.”

“I feel like your point is poorly made.”

“My point isn't poorly made-”

Jensen had interrupted, holding the now dry tshirt that we wrapped around each other’s heads. “Uh sir? The rest of us want to know if you’d like to join.”

“Yeah.”

“But they also don't think it's fair that your times are going up against their’s.”

“Why not?”

“They think you’ve probably been waterboarded and have more experience and they don't think it's really all that fair.”

“That’s stupid. Tell them I wasn't waterboarded before yesterday and they just have to get better at having it done to them.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes, it's true.” I wink at you before I leave. It wasn't true. The door slammed behind me and i raised my voice, “Which one of your fucking pussies came up with that stupid idea?”

A chorus of different voices blaming different people piped up.

“Whatever, fuck you guys.”

It wasn't until an hour before the sun went down that i could hear the door creaking open in between a joke told and the resounding laughter. I felt like I could feel you. I watched you as you walked outside slowly and a little sheepishly and I knew exactly what was going to happen so I saved you the trouble of admitting that you were about to eat your own words.

“Snake, come join us.” The laughter died down and everybody looked at you as you stood there, “It’s an order, not a request so get moving.” I picked the struggling of you admitting you feel gratitude towards me for including you right before i simulate drowning you. It’s just hotter, in my opinion.

“Hnngrh.  _ Okay. _ ” You trudge over, pretending like you hate every second of it, well maybe you did and I just suffer from a severe case of confirmation bias.

I kicked Guppy out of the seat and sat you down, wrapping the shirt around your head and leaned in to whisper in your ear, “You tap out when you want to stop. I’m going to be the only one pouring so you're going to have to trust me.”

“Having to trust a man who can't play chess isn't one of the worst things i've done for myself.”

“There will always be worse things than this.” I nod to the other two soldiers and they tilt the chair back suddenly at a 45 degree angle, it squeaks under your weight. Naturally, your hands hold tightly to the armrests. I nudge my thigh up against your left arm, “This is where I am.” I learned from yesterday, it's important to let you know where I am. I let the water pour.

My friend with the truck showed up and stood beside me. I nodded and he ignored me. I offered him a cigarette and he accepted. He leaned in over the flame of the lighter and thanked me. 

“So what do you have for me today?”

“A warning.”

“Nothing more?”

_ [Mysterious man exits stage left, leaving Fox there to ponder. Fox looks up to the night sky. Beat. He sighs. Lights dim.] _


	9. respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you never find peace in the cyclical downturn.

_ ix. _

_ My soul is one uninterrupted wound. _

It’s the final day here in the city and I hear a knock at the door, I didn’t order room service but there was somebody else who really enjoyed ordering needless bottles of champagne for fucking ridiculous prices and that person wasn’t me. I offered to show Matti how to make tissue paper moonshine and he just stared at me until he couldn’t suppress a gag any longer. I learned it from somebody I worked with there was no need for him to be so rude about it.

The luxury of the last two weeks had made me soft and careless. I opened the door and caught myself frozen in front of a familiar face.

“So you’re not dead.” He brandished a gun out of his holster and poked the barrel into my stomach. His scars had healed since I had last seen him.

“I never said that I was. Your intel is shoddy as always, Jag.” I stepped back and motioned him to come in, “You have to put that away though. I’m not alone.” Of course I had forgotten that Matti was at work.

“Oh? Who the hell are you sharing a hotel with?” Jaguar walked in and wiped his finger over some furniture checking it for dust.

“A lot of people, that’s the purpose of a hotel.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sure.”

“Well?”

“Somebody.”

“You bagged yourself a rich girl while on vacation?”

“I wouldn’t call this a vacation.”

“Yeah, neither would I. People like us don’t vacation. We retire-”

“--Or die.”

“I got these orders, I got summoned some Soviet base.”

“Right, and the orders are…?”

“Well it was to retrieve your belongings and you corpse.”

“I hope there wasn’t a stipulation about my death.”

“I’m sure alive will do fine, I think it was made under the assumption that you died in Outer Heaven.”

“I didn’t.”

“Much to my dismay.” Finally, Jag had holstered his pistol and sat down in the armchair across from me, he sinks into it and lets out a small sigh. He was one of my first enemies, never directly have we actually fought or battled against each other but we have probably killed each other’s brothers in arms. We were so young then. The world is so small. “I’m glad to see you again.”

“Well, shoving a gun into my gut isn’t usually the way you greet somebody you’ve missed.”

“I don’t think I’d ever take any chances against you, but we’re on the same side now. Twice in a row, you think we’re on a lucky streak?”

“It just means next time we won’t be. Want some tea?”

He licked his chapped lips, the cold wind had cracked them dry, “Throw some whiskey in there?”

“Right.” I got up and put the kettle on, searching the mini bar before I returned to the couch.

“I don’t think you realize what has been going on while you were away.”

I scoffed, away? “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t realize the scope of everything until recently. Until I got to see it with my own eyes.”

“I’m not impressed by plans.”

“Yeah, I know, you’re impressed with results.”

“You really look like you want to impress me.” There was something about Jag that made him so easy to derail. He was a like a speeding bullet train on a sharp turn.

He stared at me for a moment, there was a heat to his glare and he simmered with anger for a flash before it dissipated, “If I impress you, everybody else will be impressed with me.”

“Then by all means, let me be the stepping stone to your greatness.”

“Just because I can use you doesn’t mean I  _ need _ you.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“What were your orders, Jag?”

“Fuck you.”

“Those orders seem pretty uncharacteristic coming from Boss.”

“Please just listen to me.”

“Okay.”

“You have to come and see it yourself.”

“See what, exactly?”

“What they’ve been working on this whole time.”

“I’m not going unless I have a job.”

“Why?”

“Well, I have three jobs back in the village I kind of just fucked off from. And I have one here too, except business hasn’t been going too well.”

“What the fuck? Who has time for four jobs?”

“Well, I do. The fourth one is a little side business but I haven’t really been putting my services out there. Only had one client so far.”

“Are you whoring yourself out?”

“No.” But to be honest, as a soldier wasn’t I selling my body regardless?

“Then how do you get here?”

“That’s related to another assignment.”

“Well shit, where do I get me one of those?”

“You can’t go looking for it, she’ll find you.”

“I don’t… I don’t know what that means- whatever.”

“So I’ve been moonlighting as a hitman.”

“Technically, people don’t consider assasination as a full time job. Most hitmen do hitman things as their second job.”

I tilted my head to the side, “But we assassinate people as our full time job.”

He sighed, “Yeah I guess. Who’s your client?”

“Bankers.”

“Awful.”

“They pay well.”

“You’re better off ripping out the molars of POWs. What’s happened to you Fox?”

“I have orders.”

“You were never one for morals...”

“Aren’t you going to ask me who I’m working for?”

“Uh, okay. Who are you working for?”

“Oh, she’s from a different intelligence agency you wouldn’t know her…”

“You’re infuriating.”

“Yeah?” The kettle began screeching.

“I know who your handler is.”

I got up and began preparing the tea, “I knew it was a probability, were you the clean up on the body I left behind?”

“Shame on your for sneaking up on a man while he was getting undressed.”

“Yeah, shame on me.” A long silence filled the room as I make the tea. I add in a splash of whiskey to both and hope this is what he wanted. I find it strange to add it but since he decided he was going to drink, then so would i. “Should I have put his clothes back on for your virgin eyes?”

“I’m not a-- Fuck you.”

I sipped loudly and peered at him from over the rim of the cup. A delicate porcelain with a touch of gold. I made a mental note to steal these, I’m sure they would sell for at least five dollars at a flea market and make a stall host very happy. Can flea markets just for selling or are they a marketplace where I can sell things as well? I almost asked Jaguar but I decided that if I didn’t know then he probably wouldn’t know either. It’s not that he’s not smart or anything but it’s because he’s stupid.

And I am stupid as well, i suppose.

“So what is it that you want from me?” I check my wrist as if I had a watch, which I don’t.

“For you to come with me.”

“And leave all this?” 

“...yes?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah?”

“Alright?” 

“I’ll just go pack my stuff.”

“That’s it?”

“Yup.” 

“All that about wanting a job offer and-”

“My hitman business isn’t doing all too well, I might as well just have a back up plan.”

“This is more like a main plan type of job.”

“Yeah i guess my promising career as a stock boy in the only pharmacy for a hundred miles of where I live will have to make do without their star stocker.”

“Idyllic.”

“A borderline nightmare.” I didn’t even want to know any of the details.

“I do have one question though.”

“Yeah?”

“Why here?”

“Why not?”

“You could just go back home.”

“Where would that be?”

“Right. Sorry.” He looked away and at the large CRT tv that played the news on mute, Jaguar pretended to be engrossed in reading the scrolling headlines on the bottom of the screen but they weren’t in any language he knew.

“You can fuck off for now. Give me a rendez-vous point and I’ll give you a time.”

“I’ll give you one later once it’s been approved. But you have to take this.” He handed me a brick of a phone. 

“This a radio?”

“A cell phone.’

“Of course.”

“When it rings, pick it up.”

“Sure. But I have a question.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“If you know who my handler is why didn’t you tell the others I was alive?”

“Just in case I wanted to kill you.”

“Cute. Get the fuck out.”

Now all that really remained was to get Matti out of my hair. When he comes back he kicks his shoes off and huffs. Sits down on the couch with his arms crossed over his chest, his dress shirt wrinkled under his pristine blazer. He huffed again when I didn’t immediately respond. Normally, I wait until the third nonverbal cue or just let it ride until he’s complaining verbally. Eventually somebody is going to have to teach him how to use his words because nobody on this fucking earth will ever be as patient as I have been with him. Or maybe they will. I don’t know and I don’t really care. 

Instead, I sigh in return. He takes it as a challenge and sighs harder as if to indicate that he is more frustrated than I am. “What do you want?” I finally ask.

“Oh…. nothing.” He looked away from me with his nose in the air.

“Okay since you don’t want anything I have to go somewhere.”

His face snapped back to me in an instant eyebrows furrowed but inquisitive, “Where?”

“I don’t know it’s exact location.”

“Then why are you going?”

“For work.”

“What kind of work will you be doing?”

“The usual.”

“What does that mean?”

“Probably stuff like war.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“It tends to be.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever you want to do.”

“What if I want to go with you?”

“You don’t.”

“So you expect me to be some dutiful boyfriend who sits around all day while you’re off almost getting killed?”

“Well, I might actually get killed and I’m going to go regardless of what you want.”

“What about what you want?”

“I want to go.”

“I thought you wouldn’t want people to know about your secret.”

“They won’t because you’ll keep quiet.”

“No I won’t.”

“You have two options: stay here without me or come with me and live in a shitty hut in the jungle.”

“Do you think I can visit?”

“I think I might let you if I need a quick fuck.”

His face turned red and I couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or pissed off at me, “....Frank….”

“What?”

“You can’t say stuff like that.”

“Oh, okay. But does that sound like a deal?”

“I feel used.”

“I think we both do.” I let things settle around us before I push on, “Are we in agreement?”

“Only if we keep in contact every day.”

“We have been sharing a bed together and I still don't speak to you every day.”

He sighed, less dramatic than usual and more like he was genuinely frustrated by the scenario. “I don't know why i always find myself falling for men like you.”

“I don't know either. I’ll try to contact you but I can be out in the field for weeks at a time.” Covered in dirt and blood crawling along the floor of a jungle for miles to avoid catching the attention of enemy forces in the area. The way my obliques burned for the next week was unlike anything else. I was in the best shape of my life as long as I was doing what I was meant to be doing.

“That’s a really long time.”

“Not really. sometimes it's considered close to standard considering what we do.”

“When are you leaving?”

“I don't know yet.”

“And you don't know where you're going.”

“Not really.”

“If you know nothing about it, then why accept the offer?”

“I had a good Boss, he wants me back and I'm not really going to be saying no to him.”

“Your boss shouldn't dictate your life, Frank.” 

“He doesn't. I want to go.”

“Okay fine. Go.”

“Are you angry that I’m leaving?”

“I’m just sad that I'm going to be without you for a while.”

“Well, if you're lucky, I’ll come back.”

“I'm getting the distinct feeling that I’m not lucky.” Matti took his blazer off and laid it on the back of the couch, maybe over time his personality had grown on me, it was like taking care of a man who may or may not have had the same emotional maturity as Naomi when she was eight. I'm not a stranger to it but it was frustrating to see that behavior in a 27 year old man. He was handsome but that type of handsome just wasn't for me. “Come here.” He patted his lap and I placed my head there so he could run his fingers through my hair. I almost fell asleep like that every time.

The phone rang in my pocket and Matti walked in from the other room, “Have you seen my phone?”

“No.” I answered, looking around for the device. I spotted it on the mantle and pointed, “Over there.”

He walked over and shook his head, “That’s not it. Where’s the sound coming from?”

“Oh. I think it's me.”

“When did you get a mobile?”

“It's from Jag.”

“Who?”

“Co-worker.” I picked up the phone and looked at all the buttons, I checked the side of the phone as well, “Which one do I press to transmit?”

“It's a phone.”

“Right. Which button to answer?”

“Mine has it on the top left, whichever one has a picture of a phone on it.”

“There's two buttons with a picture.”

“That narrows it down by a lot. A lot less attempts before you get it right.”

I press the button and the ringing stops, I hold it to my ear, “Hello?”

Nothing in response. 

The phone starts ringing loudly again as it’s up against my ear. I press the other one and answer with another hello. This time it worked and I ended up with all the information I needed. Matti taps his foot nervously as I finish up my call.

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That's in such a short notice.”

“Normally it's fine. I usually don't have anything to leave behind.”

“Except this time you have me.”

“I’ll survive.” I smirked as if i was joking and he laughed. i choked down the hope of seeing you again. I don't even know if you're alive.

I leave the moon behind without having asked her any of the proper questions, without having gotten any of the proper answers. I've known very little all my life, now isn't the time to suddenly be concerned by it.

The streets were wet with melting snowfall, my boots threatened to soak in the inches of water on the ground as i stood there in between two large ornate buildings waiting for Jaguar. He was, as fast as he was, consistently late. I light up and wait for him to show up as the winter sun hits my face, it's welcome and it feels like it's greeting me after months of hiding. The polar night made me feel like I was stuck in some never ending day. A nightmare broken up by mundane boring shit on repeat. It was like a bad hit of some questionable drugs at a party with a DJ that was rumored to be a rapist, in all honesty he almost definitely was. Now if you can't imagine what that feels like then i can't help you. I lack many civilian experiences but out of the few, it's one of the ones that bring me the most of what I assume is shame.

I turn around as Jaguar walks up behind me.

“That's pure luck. There's no way you could have known I was coming.” He huffed.

“The point of coming here was to meet up with you and hopefully have you take me home.” I winked and pointed to the duffle slung around my body.

“That's not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“How did you know I was approaching at that moment.”

“Just a feeling.”

“A feeling.”

“Yeah you just aren't subtle. Tone it down.”

“how?”

“I don't know but just turn it down a notch.” I mimic turning a knob but only because i have the sacred knowledge that it's one of the things that he hates the most. Something about finding it rude and condescending.

“That doesn't help.”

“Oh you want help?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm not good at helping.” I lied, i think. I remembered when I helped you with your fighting stance even though it was near perfect. It was an excuse to touch you but you seemed to appreciate all the help you could get. You’re bigger but your back cozied into my chest regardless, i hadn't seen you comfortable prior to that.

“Whatever,” Jaguar rolled his eyes and motioned me towards him, “We potentially have eyes on us, so we’re leaving the country by bus before we get on the helo.”

“Why not get in one now?”

“Less chance of them sourcing a one in the middle of nowhere than there is of them getting one here.”

“I don't know why I didn't consider that.”

“You’ve been out of the game for a while.”

“It's been a few months.”

“Like I said, a while.” He looked around cautiously as we moved forth towards what I assumed was the bus station. 

A million and one questions and nowhere near enough will to ask even one of them. I let Jag catch me up as we walked. He spoke unclearly, constantly alluding to something and i let him continue doing so while I feigned understanding. Ah yes, of course. Hmmm. In tones of voice which i believed were convincing enough. They were not.

“One helo will take us from here to the country where we had our second bar fight together.”

“The second one with you or against you?”

“With me.”

“In the Netherl- I mean,” There was a sharp glare in his eye as he looked at and then around us, “in the place with the coffeeshops?”

“Yes.”

“And then where do we go?”

“I can't tell you yet, not here. It's not official yet.”

“We don't officially know where we’re going?”

“We do.”

“You just don't want to tell me.”

“I can't.”

“Because it's not Foxhound approved.”

“It's not really approved by anybody, it's not recognized as a sovereign state… yet.”

“Maybe this is the type of information you share with somebody before wildly recruiting them off to some foreign nation that's not even a nation yet.” We approached the station, there had been somebody following us the whole time but not close enough to hear what we were saying in our hushed tones.

“If I remember correctly, you didn't even bother with wanting the information.”

i stayed quiet for the entire bus ride. the helicopter ride and even for the second one even though we refueled a number of times, i didn't speak until we flew over mountains. I started to realize I knew where we were going, “What's the name of this place?”

“Zanzibarland.”

“What a stupid fucking name.”


	10. monoxide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a reunion, of sorts.

_ x. _

_ Your freedom died quiet in the halls of power. Starved for peace we'll eat war until it kills us. _

_ Six feet deep with a belly full of bullets _

  
  


Back then, there wasn’t really a name in the works, at least not one that I had known about. I was recruited into fighting a war where we were outnumbered but they were outmatched. Everything was so small and unofficial back then, how could a small platoon of mercenaries declare war against the USSR like they weren’t going to be crushed by their soviet tanks? Easily. By moving the fuck out of the way. There were bigger concerns at the time of this rebellion, was a small complex to the South going to require much man power to overcome? Of course.

There’s something very specific about the buzz around the place, there were multiple different things constantly happening when I arrived. The feel was much different from the way that this place had operated on a very base level in the early 90’s. This felt like a more official project. Less of a thinly veiled secret, like a secret hideout in the forest shared between a group of six kids amd their pet mythological animal. The faces around me were familiar but there were so many I couldn’t place, were they from dreams or conflicts? Or maybe they were from the brief glimpses into the future I was sometimes privy to. My mother, what little I could remember also had those glimpses as well but they were far more intense than mine. In her eyes, i never really belonged to her, what little I did have from her i never really deserved.

nothing was ever really mine except for the parts she couldn't claim. my lack of intense foresight was another reason for her to get rid of me. i had been given ample time to move around and get situated in Zanzibarland, unlike in Foxhound, most people weren't afraid to speak to me right off the bat. They heard I came out of early retirement and were eager to speak to me. Maybe they thought my edge had dulled and they wouldn't get cut, they were right about that but I wouldn't have cut them regardless. Some fear instilled by rumors lead to a lonelier existence as I grew older as the stories around me gained traction.

Jaguar has expressed mild jealousy since we landed. i don't really know why. i think he’s just always was like that. The way the compound was built was strange, like it was a labyrinth of constant construction, there weren’t many places that I could go aside that didn’t have a scaffolding up at any place and when i visited the area again, there was another one up, nearly rendering the place unrecognizable due to the tarps hiding all the distinguishing features, shit it just about his every feature. I didn’t mind it, I just figured that these types of things would have been further along. Big Boss was always responsible for having too much on his plate but I figured at this point maybe he was just spreading himself out too thin. Or maybe it was just the way expansion worked, along with me came more and more mercenaries. You, never came around though, I am waiting for you.

It was a blind hope in the midst of it all. Wherever there was Big Boss, you were sure to come around eventually. I can be patient.

After a week of general silence, I didn’t really know what to do. Maybe I had come here by mistake. I felt anxious for one of the first times in my life and the faint suggestion that I really wasn’t meant to be here kept bouncing around in my head. If I was, I would he seen him by now, they would have given me a mission, or they would have at least briefed me on the situation here. I had no other reason to be here, I had no trade outside of warfare. No value to the growth of this community I watched slowly flourish day by day. The progress itself was outstanding despite the small number of people involved so far.

It wasn’t until a woman in a ponytail and fatigues showed up and told me to go to the admin building that the feeling washed away. A rocket that was primed and ready to go, I just needed a direction, a destination, a purpose.

I found myself in a dark office with the blinds and curtains shut, the AC running on high over the doorway, and the room smoky enough to give my life the appearance of film grain. Four men sat in the office with cigars and bourbon in the same forum that old men always do when it came to making important decisions. 

“Good to see you, Boss.” I nodded at him as he lay back in his comfortable office chair behind his desk.

“Ah, Fox. I didn’t think you’d come.” He grinned, the wrinkles around his eyes and his face grew more intense and he held the cigar between his teeth, “I didn’t want to do this without you.”

“The dead have a penchant for rising when they’re needed.” My brows raised, last I checked, most people believed that Big Boss had perished in the epicenter of an explosion that took out Outer Heaven.

“All’s well that ends well, Frank. What matters is that we’re here, right now. How was your time in Europe?”

“Uneventful, I think.” I looked around at the men in the room, some in dress attire and others in boxy suits that must have cost hundreds of dollars. I felt underdressed in the highlighter yellow shirt from a community run 5k race hosted in the 80’s I had never been to tucked into my pants. “Glad to be back in action, though.”

“I’ve been telling these guys what a pleasure it is to watch you in your element, but I will say the fact you were hidden for so long made me nervous.”

“Yeah, the order for my corpse…?”

“Oh, that was just me being pessimistic, I wanted to lay you to rest properly.”

‘The order could have probably been worded less like a hit.”

Boss hummed, smoke slowly spilling upwards and out of the corner of smirk, “If you could be killed, I wouldn’t want you back.”

“It’s a shame that nobody tried their luck.” I scanned the room again.

“I should have known.” He rolled his eye almost cartoonishly, “If I was in their position I wouldn’t want to.”

“Is there any reason why you brought me here?”

“Oh, right. You know why you’re here right?”

“My guess is that I’m here to fight.’’

“I’ve been sitting here with some of my advisors, discussing the approach that this country should be taking in the upcoming years.”

“You have advisors now?” I cautiously glanced at every one of them, “What for?”

“To help me make more sound decisions.”

“Right.”

“It’s at the behest of others, I have the final say on anything and everything as usual.”

“Of course.” Whatever you want to believe, old man.

“As of right now,” He turned his attention to everybody in the room, “the discussion has reached a point where we need to make a decision about moving forward. We’re in a time of disarmament and peace but I fear that our borders, being as small as they are make us a target instead of the concentrated superpower that i had always believed this place would become. I’m not asking you to turn your backs on your countries out of nowhere, we all know they turned your backs on you long ago. No fancy office in a government building will erase their abandonment of you, nothing will ever make it right…”

This wasn't the first time I heard a variation of this speech, fuck man, it wasn't even the first time i heard this particular variation of the speech. The other men had given me nervous glances. Whatever. I didn’t even really want to be here.

The problem was they were split down the middle and I was only really brought along to vote with him, after all, he was responsible for signing my checks my best interest was to support whatever it was that he had decided to do. All in all, it was a classic type of hook and reel. There was a certain type of person that he appealed to and it was those who will still wander the battlefield long after they have died. They’re not ghosts but lifeless husks looking for meaning in the canyon that separates the living and their inevitable deaths. They’re the ones that pull people into the ground once they’ve been shot and nobody pulls them to cover. Beneath helmets and masks lay decaying flesh that comes apart at the touch.

For the older crowd, most of them had overcome what they are and silently dealt with the dichotomy of their existence. There were others who still felt the same vitriolic spirit they did when they did when they came back home 20 years ago. Would you live the sham you called a life in peace? When it came to a vote, those who didn’t want to hand over sensitive information were stranded here until they decided otherwise. They had come here on an invitation but were unable to leave willingingly. We wanted, no we  _ needed _ the locations of those nuclear devices the surrounding territories hid from the rest of the world. Our borders would be threatened without the firepower to back it up, our borders would be threatened should anybody else be able to ante up.

“I should have died in my 40’s.” Big Boss had muttered over a bottle of terrible whiskey. I looked up at him, unsure if I was meant to have heard it. I stayed silent, a personal thing such as that wasn’t something I would be willing to gamble commenting on. “You’ll understand what I mean when you get there.”

“Why 40?” I watched the tip of my cigarette collect ash, the cool breeze of the night rustling the leaves in the trees surrounding us. I sat on the hood of a truck with my legs crossed under me while my commander leaned against it. Nobody else was awake around us, there was an unofficially mandated curfew on the base outside of those of those that had to report to their posts. The work here was intense, most people were simply happy to have an excuse to be in bed at 8 to savor a few free minutes to themselves in the morning.

“I don’t know. Felt like it would’ve been a good end to my story.”

“That’s a weird thing to say.’

“If I had it my way I would have-- should have died in my 30’s.”

“Late or early 30’s?”

“Early.” He replied, setting the bottle on the hood with a hollow thump.

“Another good ending point for your story?”

“No, but it would have saved me from a lot of pain.”

I picked up the bottle and took a sip, grimacing at the taste. There was usually something better than this to drink but sometimes we were just unlucky. “Why not just die now?”

“You can’t- you can’t just decide when you’re going to die.”

“Why not?”

“It just doesn’t work that way. It shouldn’t.”

“But why not?”

“You hurt those around you.”

“I’m supposed to worry about that?” I swirled the swill in the bottle.

“You should.”

“I’ll consider it. What’s keeping you from dying now?”

“An honest answer? Spite. Greed. Anger.” He played with a metal plated lighter and flicked the top open and shut, “A dishonest one; I’ve accomplished too much to let it all go now. I have plans.”

“Is the fact that you have plans the dishonest part?”

“Hm, no.”

“Shame, would’ve been very impressive.”

“I think what i’ve done so far is already impressive.” His mood had soured.

“If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here. It was a joke, Boss.” The older he grew, the less he could take a joke. The less it felt like he was able to understand that I was joking. I flicked the ash off of the cig and turned my head towards him. He looked distant and deranged when you caught him off guard, when the walls came down for only a second. And in that second was where the doubts I harbored during my stay in Finland came to light. But as quickly as they came to light, they dissipated.

He grumbled, “Don’t joke with me like that.”

“Here, take another sip. Don’t worry about it too much.”

He took the bottle angrily but visibly relaxed after an audible gulp. “I’m not sending you in solo for your next mission.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said. Jaguar is going with you.”

“Are you punishing me for making a joke.”

There was a long pause before he replied, “No. He’s been looking for a shot to prove himself but I don’t trust that he can do it.”

“If you don’t trust him then don't send him at all. I don’t want to babysit him through the whole thing.”

“That’s too bad, you’re going to have to.”

“Any reason as to why?”

“Trying to replace some lost assets by getting them to see how you work.”

“Everybody works differently. You can’t shove them to work into a mold.”

“It’s more of a gentle persuasion. And what do you care about them?”

He was right, I was grasping at straws trying to come up with excuses to do things the way that I wanted to do them. A mess was easier to clean up on my own, I had nowhere to shift the blame and the wholeness of responsibility made me feel like my decisions were smarter, like I was faster and more cunning. Reliance on anybody to do anything for me always ended in extreme disappointment, I always expected too much and I’ll never get what I was truly asking for. I didn’t respond to him and crossed my arms over my chest.

“Everything will be fine, it’s nice to have somebody to have your back when you’re a little rusty.”

“Is that what this is about?”

“Is that what what is about?”

“That I’m rusty.”

“Well, it doesn’t help…”

“I didn’t choose to be.”

“I don’t expect anybody chooses to be.”

“How did I end up there?”

“You don’t remember? I went to go look for you and your body was gone. I have no clue what happened to you in the meantime or how you got to-- where was it?”

“Lapland.”

“Huh, I don’t know where that is.”

“Earlier, during the meeting you remembered.”

“Must’ve forgotten, I’m getting old.” What was he, like 60-something at this point?

“Right.” I looked down at my hands and traced the calluses on my hands in the dark. It’s no surprise that talking to him makes me think of you, but the thoughts are bleak and somber. It feels like every word with him is an active effort to push the memory of you away whether it’s consciously or not, it’s just how I felt. He knows too. I don’t believe he would put in the effort of spending time with me otherwise. “I’m going to bed.”

“You’ll be briefed in the morning.”

“Gives you a few hours to change your mind about the duo.”

“It gives you a few hours to accept it.”

“Sure.” As I leave I hear the sound of the bottle smashing into the headlights of the truck. I don’t turn around, whatever he’s dealing with isn’t my business once my back is turned. That's the way it is. Out of sight, out of mind. It’s too late to hope that he gets help. I have doubts that any of us ever will.


	11. nak muay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 86ed.

_ xi. _

_ ...those who die are meant to die...corpses are improvement. _

I coughed and the bravado of my lungs could shift the plates of the earth beneath my feet, the bitter taste of ash in a mouth of smoke lathered over my tastebuds as I waded in water up to my knees. it was monsoon season in a country with disputed borders somewhere between Guangxi and India. It wasn't exact, nor was it precise but with the way things had gone in the latest series of events, i was simply glad to have remained on my feet without catching dengue. The little things in life. risking life and limb for the taste of simplicity. i longed for those days that i could really rely on somebody else to pave the path for me. Give me a bottle of Jack and i’ll take the chance to lose myself in the amber tinted nostalgia, i'll pull you in with me. we can drown together.

i may not have had dengue but i was developing a cold. She used to make fun of me whenever i came down with one, she stroked my prickly cheek with the back of her hand and reminded me that i had already borne wounds of war worse than a mere cold. if she was alive now i wish i could tell her that when i was being tortured in columbia my only thoughts were “This is better than having a cold.” I would be lying. She would know I would be lying. I’d get a brisk backhand and the conversation would move on. my feet were so shriveled up in my boots i thought i might lose them.

miraculously, my cigar tempered through the storm like a trooper, despite the finicky nature of such things, he was consistent and strong. A spark, a flame. a killing blow.

i spoke too soon.

What was i doing here, in the middle of weather on par with apocalyptic feats? I was sulking. I was upset. I was angry. so angry i was unable to mourn the death of a man i condemned. oh he’s not dead, he’s alive and well-- actually I don't know about well. I know he’s alive and that's all the letters tell me. Hate to burden another but realistically it's not a burden i can bare alone. I wonder how she did it.

i don't even know what kept pushing me forward. I reached the outskirts of a village and a man with a strong silhouette wearing a tarp rode up alongside me in a small paddle boat. He was more prepared than I was.

“Where you from?” His english was good but hard to understand due his accent and the rain pounding away.

“Nowhere.” I said stupidly, like an idiot. neither of us had the proper fluency in each other’s language to delve into the intricacies of where i wasn't from. “America. I'm from America.”

“American. Come. I help.”

I got into his little boat but not without tipping it over and flinging him into the water. He emerged from the surface of the water laughing, the hood of his poncho revealing a bright young face with a cauliflower left ear. He held the boat for me as i got in and then rocked me into the water. He was laughing gleefully and despite being tired and cold and aching i found myself laughing back. my cigar was lost. it would be okay.

this time we both made it into the boat and I threatened to sink it with the uneven distribution of our weight. He tried to stand up at one end but I easily weighed twice as much. I imagined that if he was sitting on a trampoline and i jumped on, he would get shot up into the stratosphere. i would have to break the news to weeping parents of how he would never come back. I dragged my hand in the dirty water and hummed. The village was located on higher land, our boat came up towards a bank and he tied it to a stake driven into the ground. This was routine and i was merely the break in it.

At the house, there was a woman who was taking care of three boys, she hunched over a fire preparing a meal and she chided her eldest for being out too long. When she turned around and saw me she nearly jumped out of her skin, reaching for a pan to hit me with, i assumed. Her son jumped between us and held his hands out to stop her. He calmed her down. He called me farang. That's what they all called me here. I tried to get them to call me Big Boss but it just didn't stick. neither did “Jack”.

i felt like i was intruding on whatever this idyllic scenario was, but that feeling was immediately ruined by this tiny woman putting me to work on fixing her house. Every time i asked if they had a radio the eldest son just smiled. This tongue pressed into the hole of a freshly lost tooth, he was stitched and sutured over the brow but his step was lively. “How old are you?”

i watched him count on his fingers and then yell out to his mom, “I'm 10, 6.” 

“Ten or six?”

He held out two fingers in a peace sign and then pushed them together.

“16?”

He nodded furiously. “Yeah yeah.” Followed with a laugh. Something was so grand about life that he couldn't contain his excitement and i almost envied him for that. 

“I need to call somebody.”

He shrugged, no phone he kept saying. And i figured that there was no other forms of communication in weather like this.

The younger members of the family clung to me and climbed on my shoulders as i worked and ate and rested. i learned they had lost their father not too long ago. i let them continue, but really i was giving myself the illusion of choice which was enough of a comfort to me. maybe i could give up this whole soldier thing and practice making babies with this beautiful thai woman who has on several occasions tried to set me straight with a cast iron pan to the face. i spent a week with them and i felt like she was warming up to me, and whenever one of her children hit me in the face she would apologize (i hope that's what she was saying) and hold my face into her bosom. i feel so stupid i just froze and let my hands idly stay at my sides until she let me go. probably disappointed. that's how the story tends to go.

I was simply nervous. i had somebody waiting on me. I asked about a phone frequently. 

They finally took me to one as the rain cleared up.

I dragged my feet because the one time i finally snapped back in reality to touch her back, her children shortly got into a fight with each other and i had to hold them apart from each other. they wanted to be fighters like their brother. I wanted to stay here. I almost did.

I dialed an operator on this phone shared by everybody in the village, they had also come out to see me smiling and welcoming me. The heat had started to set in when the sun came out, heavy and humid. Suffocating. Mother nature with a wet wool blanket, hot with fury smothering us all. The operator dialed the contact i was supposed to meet and the person who answered the phone had to get in touch with the actual contact i had to meet. everybody involved in the whole situation was frustrated.

I waited by the phone after i hung up. The residents of this tiny rural village, Nong Khan Kwai, were as helpful as they could be with all they’re little quirks. they were weathered by the sun and beautiful in such a specific way that i rarely ever got to see. my urge to stay got stronger but it slid away like water on an oiled pan.

It rang and i jumped for it but Pond had beat me to the punch, grin on his face with a finger wagging at me. congrats, you beat a man who turned 50 the other day.

He spoke with the person in Thai on the phone for a minute before he handed it to me. “You, farang.”

Was this just my given name? I took the phone from him and answered, “Hello?”

“Where are you?” It was the voice of a teenager on the other side, he sounded bored and condescending like he usually did.

“I was caught in a bad storm, I’m in Thailand.” 

He sighed, “Storm take out your radio?”

“No, it was broken when i got into a disagreement.”

“Lame. Don’t break it next time.” 

“It wasn’t my intention to break it.”

“I don’t care. Do you need extraction?”

“If you meet me here we can continue on to the rendezvous together.”

“I can do that.”

“Where are you now?”

“Saigon…”

“Why are you there?”

“I didn’t hear from you so I just picked up work in the area.”

I was stunned, there was no work in Saigon. “Are you spending your money on hookers?”

“What? No. I don’t even know where to find hookers.” He lied, he knew when I knew he was lying. If this conversation was in real life, I’d give him a brisk backhand and then the conversation would move on.

“Just get here ASAP.”

“Whatever.”

“What was that, Frank?” He was grinding down my last nerve whenever we spoke lately.

He grumbled, “I meant whatever,  _ sir _ !”

That’s okay. I’ll take that. Kids were so fucking insufferable. Why couldn’t they all be like Pond?

It didn’t take too long for Frank to touch down with a heli in a clearing nearby. I don’t know how he found me, I had forgotten to give him my last known coordinates. The plan originally was to scout out locations for my next project, while hitting specific locations to do favors to local warlords and government officials. Eventually, they would all come in handy either during the process of setting up Outer Heaven or afterwards. Politics in itself was terrible but you had to get in bed in order to dance.

I met him outside with all my things, all these children begging for me not to go. They hugged my legs as i walked out the house and Frank laughed at me.

“I’m going to have to charge you for all the extra cargo.” He snickered, avoiding the outreaching arm of a four year old that held him on my bicep with a death grip.

“They’re not coming along.”

Fox looked past me and at Pond, recognizing him as the one that spoke to him on the phone and he walked over, speaking in hushed tones before helping me out with the extra baggage. They high fived and smiled at each other. Oh, that’s nice. He made a friend. “We good?”

“Sure are, are Vietnamese and Thai similar?”

“Do they sound similar?”

“Yes?”

He looked at me with a glare that could slice through my body, “They’re not.”

“How do you know it?”

“I learned it.” It wouldn’t be until he was 22 that he would tell me about the man who taught him how to fight and the culture that came along with it, neither of us knew it but we would grow closer as the years went on.

Now it was my turn to grumble.

I climbed onto the helicopter and we took off, I left behind my life as a rice farmer with 5 kids. they might not have all grown up to be like their eldest brother, they might have all ended up like Frank.

He wasn’t this mean when Naomi was around, even though he did have his moments still.

I had half a mind to pack his things and send him to school with her, but I don’t know which kind of school would take a 16 year old illiterate soldier. Maybe one day I’ll make one, save somebody else the trouble of having to deal with the mood swings of hormonal teenagers. The Boss might not be alive to say it but I know I was never this bad.

If she was alive she’d slap me right now.

And the conversation would move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new things are being woven into the story, i did say this might end up being a really big project, right?


	12. marked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> country of bone

_ xii. _

_ May the eyes of cowards never sleep _

_ -Kalid ibn al-Walid _

when i opened my eyes, it felt like it was the first time i had slept since Outer Heaven, the bustling around me was of those getting ready for morning drills at 5 and i slowly clamoured out of bed like my limbs were made of lead. i had half a mind to sink back into bed and wrap the threadbare sheets around my body and wake up again in a week, the other half of me disagreed and pulled me out of bed. I had run the morning 5k with one group and then again with another group, i had a lot to catch up on for all the free time on my vacation i spent shivering in the subzero temperatures instead of working. I did cut some wood but that didn't really compare to the level of activity i had before that.

eventually i had found my way back to his office, on my way there the girl with the ponytail smiled at me, “Hey Fox, I was just going out to tell yo-”

“Yeah, I'm already on my way. Obviously.”

“Oh, yeah I guess haha.”

“Okay.”

“See you around.” She seemed less stern than yesterday and more bubbly. She was kind of cute.

“See ya.”

Right as I walked up to the door Big Boss opened the door with an air of frustration around him. “You're late.”

“I'm early actually.”

“Jaguar has been here for an hour.”

“So?”

“So you're an hour late.” He reasoned, unreasonably.

“I’m 30 minutes early. It’s 07:30. You told me to be here at 0800.”

“Yes.”

“Any time after 0800 is considered late, right?”

“Correct.”

“And the time right now is…”

“0730.”

“So it's not after 0800.”

“Mhm.”

“So i'm not late to the meeting.”

“But Jaguar was here an hour ago.”

I sighed, almost as dramatically as Matti usually did, “Who gives a fuck when he got here?”

“I do.” Bourbon on his breath already, he couldn't hide it with the smoke from me. I've known what he was like for years. A closet of corpses begging him to let them rot and dry out. This is how he kept them alive in his memory.

_ Who gives a fuck what you think. _ “Whatever, we can start the meeting a half hour early.”

“An hour late.”

“Like i said, whatever man. Great start to the day.” The runs really helped with managing the insurmountable task of dealing with Boss, if i hadn't gone on a long one then we’d both be with our hands wrapped around each other’s throats. It was not the first time we butt heads and it wouldn't be the last. I sat down and Jaguar feigned looking guilty, it brought him great joy to see me get yelled at by the only person so qualified to do so, I guess Naomi is also qualified but only because i often forget to call her. I wonder if she thinks I’m dead still. 

“Alright men, I can only really give you your target and the location of where your target might be.”

we both nodded and let him continue on.

“i need you to dispose of something, it’s nuclear material kept under lock and key.”

Jaguar spoke up, “Why?”

I sighed.

Boss smiled, “We’re forcing disarmament.”

“Are they refusing to give it up?” This fucking loser was taking notes. Bro, just listen.

“If they were giving it up,” I replied, “they wouldn't have anything to hide.”

“Exactly. Just locate it and get rid of it. They shouldn't be in possession of it.”

“When do we leave?” Jag asked.

“1900.”

This really still only seemed like a one man job to me and I told Boss as such. He sighed and informed us that we were dismissed. Jaguar left and i shut the door behind him, remaining in the office. “Wasting resources shipping two of us seems to be a hill you're willing to die on.”

“I'm willing to die on any hill to make these plans come to.” He relit his cigar. The flame illuminated his strong features, the black material of his eyepatch seemed to swallow the light that hit it. He was handsome even in his older age. It made me think of you, it seems foolish to think we’d both get old. it seemed foolish to imagine that i’d make it past this decade. i don't belong to a lineage of a legendary soldier, i'll die nameless in an unmarked grave on enemy soil long before i even turn 35. Just the way I'd want to. You’ll outlive me for years and years. Even though i know you wouldn't want to.

“You don't seem that dedicated to dying.”

“I’m not.”

“How did you explain away Outer Heaven?”

“I didn't. I showed up and let people think what they think.”

“Does Naomi…”

“Talk to her before you leave, she’s upset.”

“Does she know I’m alive?” I did not want to break the news to her.

“It came up in conversation, she’s mad at you for not calling her.”

“I was busy.”

“I know.” He puffed out smoke like a chimney, “I wish you were there to hear the fit she threw over the phone when she heard i was still kicking. I could walk to the other side of the room and still hear her yelling at me from the receiver.” Naomi had a soft and caring heart, the time she spent with Big Boss was nothing like the time I spent with him but she was still grateful. She still appreciated him nonetheless. In her eyes, he was man who pulled a war orphan in the care of a child soldier and gave them purpose and meaning. In my eyes he was a progressively senile father who i also happened to respect as a soldier and a leader.

“Do you have her number?”

“She touches down in an hour.”

She’ll raze the earth when she lands.

I was taking a nap in the private room that had been provided for me before the sudden slam off my door woke me up. The twenty year old barged in and and dropped her bags on the ground, hands on her hips ready to scold me. I pulled the blanket over my head and pretended to snore louder. “I know you're under there, Frank. The room stinks like you.”

I ignore her and snore even louder. I don't stink, I just showered and entered this room for the first time 90 minutes ago.

“Don't insult my intelligence, Frank.” She sounded like she was tired and done with me. “Why don't you ever call me?”

i peeked by head out a tiny bit to answer, “i don't have a phone.”

“You are surrounded by phones.”

“and none of them are mine.” i retreated back into my warm little burrito of sleepiness. The mattress squeaked when she sat on the edge.

“Do you hate me, is that why you keep letting me think you're dead?” I peeked back again and she was looking pitiful with her stupid eyelashes batting knowing that i am also stupid and don't want to see her hurt.

“I don't hate you.”

“Then why do you always do this to me?” She bonked my head with a rolled up newspaper she bought in a layover in Germany. “Could you once ever learn how much it hurts me?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll remember next time.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay,” she leaned against me with her hand draped over my side, “you won’t believe what college has been like.” Naomi spoke extensively about her past relationships and how hard they had made the last few years. She made me promise not to tell anybody about the girlfriends and also to promise not to tell anybody about the boy she was seeing now. Something about her was convinced that none of it would go over well with Boss, I couldn’t see why he would care about Naomi dating anybody but she was foolish and young and yearned for a fatherly figure to accept her. If it meant hiding parts of her, then fine. I understood that.

I had drifted asleep at least twice during her little tirade that had something to do with labs and organic chemistry and whatever smart science bullshit she was all about. I don’t know what most of the words she’s saying even mean and i couldn’t even begin to think about the fact that there was an entire field of study behind them. She shook me awake and rolled her eyes but continued on. 

Her hardest time in college was when she fell for a boy who only dated her because she was pretty and smart and left her the moment another pretty girl gave him a chance. She told me that it normally wouldn’t have been too bad but that was when the news about Outer Heaven had reached her. “It ended up being okay, I was able to keep my grades up and Boss came around to see me more often.” She rolled her eyes, “You know, after i found out he didn't die.”

“Lucky you. He sent out an order to have me killed if I wasn’t already.” My voice was muffled under the covers.

“You always think of yourself as such a comedian.” She shrugged it off and continued on. Whatever. Eventually I got out of bed and stared at her, and she smiled “They told me I could use your room while you were away on the mission.”

“How long are you here for?”

“A week. Spring break.”

“Keep the room for the week, I’ll stay in the barracks.”

“Are you sure?” Her eyes were puppy dog and she knew it worked. It worked before she even did the eyes thing because I’m a weak man and that’s all there is to it, I had always prized her comfort over mine since we were little. The guilt eats at you and makes you selfless, i suppose.

“I’m sure. I’ll see you tomorrow when I get back.”

“Don’t die.” She sang to me, she was as frail and fragile as a baby bird, nestled in my calloused hands. She always will be.

“Yeah, I’ll try not to.”

The ride in the helicopter was as eventful as the ride into Zanzibar. I didn’t want to be here with Jaguar, I wanted to be here alone and thinking about the mission. Not about how I would deal with all of the ways another variable in the mix could fuck it up. We landed about 5 miles from where we were supposed to initially, it was too hot and the journey there wouldn’t be too treacherous on foot. A little bit of warm up to get the blood flowing was always welcome. I tell him to follow my lead, the entire purpose of this mission was for me to take point and how Jag what’s expected of him the next time he’s tasked with doing something alone. The success of this mission and the ones that come after always depended on the success of this one. A learning experience, if you may.

There were two men that were responsible for holding the codes of the nukes that were already surrendered to the UN, they would most likely be the ones responsible for the new ones when they’re made. In my head I had graphed out a little plan. I assume that Jag also had a plan that was completely different from mine. He was clutching a bag. Who the hell actually brings a bag on a mission?

They were on high alert for one reason or another, oh wait, I forgot they’re hoarding illegal material. Spotlights scanned the grounds in routine routes and guards, however few there were, were robust. I didn’t recognize their uniforms. Damn, maybe I was rusty. 

The obvious entrances were manned and the barbed wire on top of the fences did not exactly make me feel welcome to climb on top of them, I hear rustling and turn to Jag, he pulled wire cutters out of that bag and I smiled. In this instance, two heads were better than one. “Everybody sleeps on bringing a bag.” He smirked, as he slowly clipped away at the fence.

“I would’ve found a way without your little tools.” I waited for him to be finished and hold the makeshift entrance for him and then crawled in right after. I was only in possession of my blade and nothing else. We’d have to make quick work of the entire matter. There was gossip at home that had to be listened to. I scanned over the vista and saw a block of boring cement buildings functioning as some type of store house, whether they held ammo, weapons, or food wasn’t of any importance but I did give the knob a short jiggle to check if it was locked. “Pick that lock and keep the door slightly open.”

“What’s in there?” He asked me as he kneeled in front of the door.

“Don’t know. Maybe we’ll figure it out en route to extraction.” I kept watch as he fiddled with it, working more hurriedly as the sound of a heavy truck in the distance had started to get louder. We left the door slightly ajar as a tan MTVR with a black cover drove past, carrying cargo from one end of the base to the other. In the middle of the desert, they didn’t need to worry about being quiet or not attracting attention, I pulled the shemagh over the bottom half of my face and ran low through the cloud of dust to reach the edge of the warehouse on the other wise of the road. The spot light crept towards me as to my right I could hear the footfalls of a soldier make it’s way closer to me. The bright light just missed the tips of my boots. I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and moved on before the soldier turned the corner. Jaguar lagged behind but I expected this, he’s usually always late.

It was a hit or miss when we checked the warehouses, but eventually we made our way through the grid of buildings housing WMDs of ages past. Maybe first we should have checked the final warehouse that had the most security. We climbed to the top of the warehouse nearby to consider what it was I - i mean we, should do. There was no way that we could safely destroy the material here with all of these people present. If Zanzibar was responsible for a nuclear attack without waging war first, Boss would be morose. 

“I have a remote detonator.” Jag piped up.

“For what?” I forgot he was there for a second.

“I mean, we can destroy it and make it useless to them or whoever their buyer might be.”

“We could but...” It may be a military compound but civilians did happen to live and work here, these are people who aid efforts like ours without dedicating their existence. I don't understand the point of half adding it but that doesn't mean they are people we should needlessly kill. 

“But?”

“Disposal is a word we use lightly.”

His head tilted in confusion, “What do you mean?”

“We don't have the means to dispose of nuclear material here, we bring it back to base.” i've only been on a number of missions like this one, and these were in more active bases with nothing to hide, there are specific containment protocols and and security checkpoints we would have to bypass in order to even reach it. This will require time. Much to think about.

“Why?”

“R&D makes good use of it, usually.” Yeah they fucking mount that shit onto like giant robots it's really cool.  _ Didn't he know? _

He stared at me in the dark, I couldn’t really see him but I felt his eyes piercing into me, “That’s not the mission.”

“And? If Boss told you to dance, would you sing a little song for him too?” I felt like my words were going over his head, there was a general objective but everything was pretty fluid in between the briefing and the end point, as long as we made it there eventually. A few scenic detours never hurt anybody as long as it ensured the same end result. Get the plutonium out of the hands of the other guys.

“What does that mean?.”

“It means nothing.” I placed my hand on the bag he clutched to calm him down. “I just hate having to explain things.”

“Yeah, you’re shit at it.” Obviously, he was really set on sneaking into a heavily fortified base to set off some explosives.

“We’ll still get to go inside though.” It was nothing more than a half hearted attempt to make him feel better. The wind was cool and crisp, refreshing and exciting. “But we’ll have to figure it out as we go along.”

“That’s not what we were told to do.”

“That’s fine. You do what you think is right and I’ll see you on the other side.” I leapt over the edge and grabbed onto the ledge, “First one down buys the other’s smokes for a week.”

I made it down before he did and I did not in fact get my smokes bought for me for a week because he almost blew the whole mission getting loud saying that he never agreed to be a part of any competition. He takes every bit of bait i drop for him. amature.

We stuck to the shadows for the most part, slipping through the doors before they closed and depending on the specific carelessness of soldiers who were bored out of their minds by these mundane tasks. You know that dreaded autopilot that takes over and lets all the days meld into one long excruciating day, those are the days that keep me in business during times of peace.

This ended up being less of a warehouse and hangar and more of an actual compound with multiple different usages, the layout of this one was nothing like we had anticipated in the building plans, plywood walls had been erected in order to give some semblance of privacy between the different divisions that were housed there. It looked like the nightmare or the wet dream of some pencil pusher. Of all the fucking buildings and the had to pick the last one to put literally everything in. Go fucking figure.

I looked up and observed the rafters of the place and figured a bird’s eye view would be useful, maybe I could navigate Jag through a minefield of secretaries with tight buns (no not like that). I feel like I should give them another defining characteristic but however you want to take it would actually be quite accurate. I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed up at the high ceiling. He stared for too long, clearly confused by what I meant. By the time he looked back down I was already gone.

You know, the entire energy of the room changes when another person walks in. If you’re tuned in then your body knows well before it even registers. It’s like those moments where you’re reminded you’re breathing and then you’re breathing manually for a while the thought fades and your body takes over again. Not everybody gets it and it's people like that keep me in business. I climbed up the sheet metal stairs, looking for a decent point to start climbing the daunting walks. I wondered if the vents that sprawled up on the walls would support my weight. One way to keep people from successfully carrying out stealth missions would be to make additions like this unable to bear the load of an adult. i thought to myself, maybe when i'm done doing all this and i somehow ended up not dead but probably severely crippled, I should do consulting for people who want to have places that can't be snuck into. i should probably look into something like that when i get back onto base or something. The vents are noisy as i climb up, i look down and all one of these people has to do is look up at the sky in some kind of desperation and i'd be made.

itsy bitsy fox. if Spider had survived Outer Heaven, he would be proud.

Eventually i reached the rafters, long steel beans covered in concrete for fireproofing, it was rough in texture but made it easy to hold on to.

i radioed Jag and scanned the floor for the little alcove he was tucked in neatly into. “Jaguar, this is Fox. Do you copy?”

“Affirmative, but can we drop the act?”

“That's a negative. Over.”

He expressed frustration with a soft grumble, “10-4, over.”

“i’ll be your eyes, right now. just do everything as I tell you and you’ll be fine.”

“There a reason why we have to do this?”

“We don't. But i don't know how confident you are in your climbing.”

“Not very.”

“So then we do it this way.” I confirmed, “Peek out now and there’s an empty cubicle to your left. Move.” As I guided him through I frequently adjusted my position. I really could've left him to fend for himself but if Boss says we’re understaffed, we’re understaffed. Can't bring home a dead merc, especially one shaking like those little rat dogs. What were they called again?

“There’s a keycarded door at the end of the hall.” He told me.

“Did you pick up any keycards?”

“No.”

“Look for one. The sector you’re in seems to be deserted for the most part. Guess they don't work on the night shift, lucky you.” I kept an eye out for any surprise visitors. Chihuahuas. That's what they were called. “Get the right keycard and wait for me.” 

“Got it.”

“The keycard?”

“No, your message.” He said, i ignored him and waited for affirmation before i found my way down. Carefully and slowly. Buildings were some of the more treacherous climbs that conveniently also made my hands sweat. I hope that the more I get used to it, the less I’ll sweat.

“So what's the plan?” Jag asked me.

“Get a better layout of the guarded area.” I said.

“Look for a big office and start rummaging through his shit.”

“Not a very conducive plan.”

“Usually it works out just well enough.” I moved to grab the keycard and he pulled it back.

“What do we do if somebody’s in there?”

“Kill him.”

“Do we count on him being in there?”

“we could. He might be in the office, he could be one of those workaholic types.”

“Worka-what?”

“Nothing. Let’s just see how it goes, okay?” I reach for the keycard again and he surrenders it to me. I swiped it and it returned with three high tone beeps and a fourth long one with a green light flashing in beat before the sound of a magnetic lock let up.

We were met with stairs that loops downwards and downwards, leading us into the depths. dizzying. harrowing. endless.

There wasn't really any way this would be the only entry, realistically there was an elevator that was under constant video surveillance that required a keycard to even call, i didn't know as much but i rarely ever opted to take the elevator in any of my missions. There was a time where I had to in Addis Ababa but it was a strange mission with even stranger parameters, it felt like being held at gunpoint in a dream you knew was happening. I’m not sure if you were in Foxhound at the time, actually, but this was more of a private type of job where Big Boss and I got dressed up in suits at the behest of some warlord. Not once did we wonder why we garnered such attention from a certain type of person. 

On the way to the top of the building, the elevator had stopped, the lights turned off. The cables creaked under the weight of 7 men in the small metal box. In my head i ran the scene over and over and over again, the cable would snap and we would crash down 23 floors before we hit the ground. I could see it so vividly, a snapped tibia had stabbed me in the stomach and my arms were crushed in the impact. it only took moments for me to realize that the tibia belonged to me. my body mutilated by scraps of metal. I didn’t hear the noise when the box hit the ground, I thought about laying there, slowly dying for hours surrounded by corpses and-- the lights inside the elevator came back on and it started moving back up. Boss let go of the bruising grip on my shoulder and pat me like it was nothing. I let out a breath I had been holding onto without knowing and the men around us laughed at me. I don’t like elevators.

We came face to face with a metal door that let us in when we fed it the card. There was a singular entry into the rest of the complex that heavily suggested wearing clean suits, suggested with signs with simply rendered drawings on the effects of radiation poisoning. I donned one and moved on. Moving along the halls and looking for something that would let me figure out where some type of office wing was in the midst of all of these labs. Did we simply delve into the wrong building? I continued wandering wherever I could, nobody bothered stopping me and nobody asked me any questions. Secrecy in workplaces never bodes well for overall security, it’s another crack in the foundation to slither into.

Eventually the little booties of the suit padded into a carpeted hall and I bolted straight for some sort of corner office, I jiggled the handle and opened the door. It was pristine, with little sticky notes lining the side of the desk color coded for personal tasks and work reminders. I sat in the large chair and deftly rummaged through some paperwork, doing everything in my power to leave it exactly how I found it. Jaguar walked in and I pointed him to the filing cabinet. “Find maps. Don’t care what they’re maps of, don’t care if they’re blueprints of something insignificant because we’re not leaving here without them. Without a word he complied and started pulling documents out of files and placed them into his bag.

My eyes grazed over the post-its again and froze on the singular green one in the array of pink and orange.

“You think you have what you need?” I asked him, there was a sense of urgency to my voice.

“Possibly?” He said.

“We’ve gotta go.”

“Where and why?”

“There’s a much easier way.”

“An easier way to what?”

“To get what we came here to get.”

He paused, “Okay, are you going to tell me how?”

I shrugged and pointed to the sticky note on the desk.

Jaguar seemed frustrated, “If they’re already surrendering it, why are we even here?”

“I don’t really care about that part all too much, all I know is that those UN guys can’t fight for shit.”


	13. a simple request

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> relentlessness born of need

_ xiii . _

_ "Memory does not return like experience, more like imagination: How it would have been if, how it must. I am a ghost and do not wish to understand the present" _

_-Patricia Beer_

“Why not?”

“I’m not quite sure how to answer that.”

“It wasn’t a complicated question.”

“No, it was, uh…”

“Tell me why.”

“Snake, I--” Distinct sounds of shuffling perhaps indicating discomfort. “--David. Please just listen to me, okay?”

“I have been listening, but you haven’t been saying anything.” The plastic material of the phone squeaked in futile protest as the grip around it tightened.

“David. For what feels like the tenth time, it is outside of my jurisdiction personally to make that call--”

“Why?”

The interruption was forcefully ignored. “--but even if it weren’t, I would still say no.”

“...why?”

“It would be irresponsible of me to allow someone unfit for duty to serve.”

“Unfit for duty?”

“Yes, David.”

“By whose measure?”

“As you are aware, Foxhound has a dedicated team of medical staff onboard, including--”

“There was a mistake.”

“I would really like to believe that, Dave. But--”

“I am fit for duty.”

“David--”

“Call me Snake.”

“Listen...Snake. Please.”

“What?”

“It’s four in the morning, and I have--”

“This is important, Roy.”

“You’re drunk and I can’t continue this conversation in good faith.”

“...I’m not--”

“Get some sleep, Snake.” Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Snake’s grip tightened further around the phone and it creaked a little more worryingly, but he deigned to ignore it. So long as the phone held its structural integrity long enough for him to make one more phone call it didn’t matter.

As long as this call went better, he wouldn’t have to worry about it regardless. He sat back down at the table and pressed his head against the side of it, taking some amount of comfort from the cold wood indenting his skin. A folder lay open on the table with its contents haphazardly strewn across an area of approximately three square feet--a testament to what an ordeal it had been to locate the small piece of paper with faded ballpoint ink listing out the numbers of the two people who’d seen fit to keep in contact after his discharge.

After accidentally pressing a key twice, he finally inputted the number correctly and shakily brought the phone back to his head, pressing the earpiece hard against the shell of his ear, as though it would let him hear the footsteps on the other side heading toward the phone so that he didn’t have to deal with as much of the suspense of--

Groggily and apparently somewhat tetchily, the call’s recipient finally answered. “You’ve reached the Miller residence, at four seventeen in the fucking morning. If this isn’t important, I’m giving you ten seconds to hang up before I put out a--”

“Master?”

“Dave? Where the fuck have you been?”

“...here?”

The mix between a sigh and a groan that escaped Miller sounded somewhat distant, as though he’d moved the phone away from his mouth. “You haven’t answered my calls. I went to your old apartment and everything. I thought you--”

“I never gave you the address to my old apartment.”

“Are you stupid?”

Snake pondered that for a moment before shaking his head, though it was still pressed against the table so it just ended up slightly dragging against the corner. “How would I know?”

“You weren’t there. I had thought you’d ended up tango uniform in a ditch somewhere, you little shit.”

“Oh. No, I moved. Why would you think that?”

Miller was quiet for a moment and Snake tried to imagine what kind of expression he might be making. As much as Snake had trouble reading people in general, Miller was a real open book in person. He wondered how much worse he’d be at hiding shit if he’d stop wearing the sunglasses. “Why’d you call, Dave?”

“I want to come back.”

“Where?”

After Campbell’s response, Snake was frankly surprised that it wasn’t obvious. Or, well, maybe it was, and Miller was just playing dumb or something. Maybe he thought Snake was talking about his old apartment, but he wasn’t sure why that would make sense. Going from a shitty apartment in Seattle to a shitty apartment in Albuquerque didn’t change much except for the weather. “Foxhound.”

“That isn’t how it works, Dave.”

“Why not?”

Miller exhaled at length. “It just isn’t. You’re retired. You can’t just come back.”

“I’m fit for duty.”

“Yeah? Me too.”

“I’m serious.”

“Oh, so you’re telling me you don’t think a guy in his fifties with two prosthetics can handle wetwork anymore?”

“Uh...well...can you?”

“No, jackass.”

“Okay. I was worried I’d said something--”

“Disrespectful? No, I was joking.”

Snake grumbled an unintelligible apology.

“Dave, no one’s gonna be able to break this to you gently. And that’s good, because honestly, I don’t know how to do that. But you’re done. You’re not coming back. And you should be happy you’re not. Get out while you still can. Enjoy your retirement. Go to school or something. You’ve got the brain for it. Do something with your life that isn’t just--”

“I don’t think I can do anything else.”

Miller went quiet again.

“I need something to do. I feel...itchy. Or. It’s not itchy but it’s like--”

“I know what you’re talking about, Dave. You don’t have to explain it to me. I don’t really want to hear it.” Miller paused before seemingly backpedaling. “Well, listen, it’s not that I don’t want to hear it from you. Okay? You should talk if you’re...comfortable...doing that. But I already know what you mean.”

“Then help me,” Snake pressed, bringing his free hand to tug at his own hair as he felt his jaw clench.

“You can’t come back to Foxhound--”

“Why?”

“Stop interrupting me.”

Snake gritted his teeth together. “Fine.”

“Where are you?”

“What?”

“Where are you living now?”

“Can’t you figure it out the same way you figured out my old address?”

There was a clacking against the phone on Miller’s end. Over their past phone calls, Snake had come to believe that this sound was the arm of his sunglasses hitting the phone while he rubbed the bridge of his nose underneath them, like he’d seen him do so many times in person. “Dave, if you give me your address, I can come talk to you about some options. Not Foxhound, but I’ve got some contacts. I’d rather not discuss something like that over the phone. Capisce?”

“Crystal.”

“Great. Where are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gideon wrote this chapter at my request so i guess fiaf is a collaborative work now. updates have been slower but that's okay.


	14. volcano

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our gods are empty like the holes in our heads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: graphic physical abuse. page break line where it starts and ends if you wish to skip that part.

_ xiv. _

_ A serpent's crown is oft lined with marrow. _

R&D in Zanzibar was rudimentary at best, everything around here was a work in progress but it was the sector that was the most developed. We had dropped off the container there with Madnar hissing and disheveled. I didn't realize he was on base as well. 

“You really should take more care, if not transported or handled properly the material could leak.” The doctor scolded us, hunched over like a goblin covering gold.

“Here’s to hoping it didn't.” I held up my little milk carton as a little cheer and downed it in one gulp. “It's good. Don't worry about it.”

“Can't help but worry. Sometimes you people always tend to mess these things up.”

“The fuck do you mean by  _ you people _ ?” I theatrically aimed my near empty milk carton for his head and threw it. A few drops of milk splattered on his hair as he ducked under the arc. I never liked this guy.

Frustrated, he wiped his hair with his hand and pointed at me angrily, “Uneducated soldiers and fools like you!”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention and my muscles tensed before I had even heard Boss’s footsteps, the room had fallen completely silent, “I seem to recall,” he said, introducing himself into the conversation “that the ‘educated’ community is more deserving of your… contempt. What was it that all those scientists told you to do?” He always spoke with a strange cadence when he was trying to make a point

The doctor was subdued instantly, burning with humiliation.

“Maybe you should be more gracious to your uneducated hosts.”

“Of course, Boss.” Madnar muttered.

“You should apologize.”

“I’m sorry, Boss.” 

“And to Fox.”

“I’m sorry, Fox.”

“And Fox?” the hulking one eyed man turned to look at me, “you should apologize too.”

“i'd rather die.”

“Glad that’s settled then. Show me what you got for me.” He sat down on a computer chair that squeaked under his weight.

“It’s uranium.” i pointed and shrugged, i don't know what he expects me to say whenever he asks me this, i’m not very well educated on anything I just read whatever the container says.

“Is it useful?” Big Boss was no longer talking to me and the scientist piped up with a positive affirmation. “Well that's that.”

“What about the debrief?” I asked.

“Oh, right.”

i started at the blinds and the slits of light they let in and splayed on the floor, in a few years time they’d be stained and dirty while Boss spends most of his time here trying to get this place off the ground, Jaguar paces back and forth from bookeshelved wall to bookshelved wall, anxious about something or everything. The door slammed shut behind us and the heavy booted footfalls walked closer. Boss was a very particular type of person, in moments he wanted it he was light as a feather but then when he wanted his presence to be known it was a switch that turned him into a bull in a china shop, one that doesn’t actually ruin anything but informs you of his presence with nothing other than his gusto.

“So when were you going to tell us that they were surrendering the package anyways?” Jaguar blurted out. There was something so small and genuine about him, maybe it was the positive impact his mother had on his life before she died. She was a doctor from China who was helping with a malaria outbreak when she had fallen in love in the Congo and never returned to her province. She was a virtuous woman based off of what he said, whatever she did forged his morality. Whatever she did made him fucking annoying to work with sometimes.

it’s a strange thing for somebody like us to be. ethical dilemmas tend to fall through the cracks on the battlefield. “I wasn’t aware, the intel was wrong apparently.” Boss replied calmly.

“Then why did we take it from the UN?”

“You two did  _ what _ ?” Boss put his hand over his mouth to feign surprise but I could see the curl of his lip under his rugged and wrinkled fingers. He was such a bad fucking liar.

It took a few hours, detailing everything that had gone down and ended up with Boss patting me on the back and nodding at Jaguar. 

“Would you mind taking him on another mission?” He asked me, heavy hand between my shoulders. It was reassuring, if menacing.

“Honestly, I would rather die.”

When I was younger, Naomi would pretend to cut my hair. She would fashion her fingers like little scissors and fake snipping away at my hair. It was a way to tell me that my hair was too long and that I should consider cutting it. The longer it was, the greasier it would be. Which meant that the more she would complain about my hair being disgusting despite carrying on until I fell asleep. Basically, in my late teens, when sometimes she felt affectionate and bored enough she would needlessly bully me about how oily my hair was. 

I was lying down in my bunk with a book when she sat down on the bed next to me, “Frank, did you take a shower?” Her nose was all crinkled up, she wouldn’t believe me if I said yes.

“Yes.” I said, not moving my attention past the book.

“I don’t believe you.”

“There are a hundred other sweaty people in here, how do you know it’s me?”

“You have a very distinct smell, you know how I’m good at smelling.”

“I know how good you are at annoying me.” Neither claim was quantifiable, exactly.

“Whatever, I just came over here to check up on you.” She looked around, pretending to be interested in whatever the fuck the other soldiers in the crowded barracks were up to in their limited free time before returning her attention back to me.

I look over at her for a brief moment before I return back to my book,“I’m busy.”

“I can see, what are you reading?”

I show her the cover of a shitty paperback romance novel, “This.”

“I didn’t take you for such a softie.” 

“A break from this shit is nice.” I had taken this off of some newer recruit who arrived yesterday, “I was reading something i never got to return to Miller but sometimes I just want to read books that suck.”

“What is it about?”

“Some girl with special powers.”

“And?”

“She can read minds.”

“That's not so special.”

“It is if you’re dick hungry.”

“Please don't say it like that.”

“What, does that term hit too close to home for you?”

“Frank, knock it off.”

“It was a joke.”

“You're not funny.”

“Never said i was.” I went back to actually reading the book and she sighed.

“Why don't you ever tell me anything?” 

I put the book down open face on my stomach, the spine of the book facing upwards, “I like listening.”

“It makes me feel like I don't even know you.”

She doesn't, but up until now she believed that she did, “Some things are better left alone, Naomi.”

“Like when did you learn to read?”

“Six years ago.”

“Would've been nice to know that.”

“I guess it would, you never asked.”

“So i wasn't the only one to get an education, then.”

“I don't know if Master Miller’s classes count as education.” Not classically so, at least.

“Sure they do, it's not a good education but it's still something.”

Something about that line pissed me off and I found it hard to let go. “I changed my mind, I learned a lot from him.”

“It can't all be that great, it's not like he's tenured.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh you know, like a college professor.”

I shrugged, growing increasingly aggravated, “So?” College is a scam created by Big College to sell more diplomas.

She knew how I felt snubbed when she was chosen to live in America over me, there's no way she couldn't have known. “I think you could've done well in college.” She said, but all I could hear was the uncertainty in her voice. “Just the other day you couldn't even read  _ road signs _ \--”

“And just the other day you were still pissing the bed as an adult so what good did college do you?”

She slapped me across the face. “Frank! You can’t say that!” I struck a nerve too deep and instantly knew i said the wrong thing. it was already out and regret isn't something i really do.

“Right. I didn't mean to.” 

“I don’t know why you try your best to make me hate you sometimes.” Naomi weakly pounded my chest with a limp fist, she sniffled as she walked away her heels clacking on the linoleum flooring. I returned to reading my book, unsure of how to apologize.

Within the next two minutes a large powerful hand grabbed me by the front of the shirt and pulled me out of the bottom bunk onto the ground. My head hit the floor and it felt like my brain was jolted, my vision dimmed for a split second.

* * *

“Your sister is only here for a week and this is how you treat her?” Boss’s voice growled before I could even make out the features of his face. It was like having a rabid dog over you, frothing, foaming at the mouth. His hand was splayed on my chest, the pressure against my ribcage intensified and he and i both knew that if he pushed any harder it would snap.

You could tell that's what he wanted with the mad look in his eye.

Naomi isn't even really my sister. She’s a manifestation of vestigial guilt.

He grabbed the front of my shirt again, lifting me up and slamming me back down onto the ground. I curved my back just in time to save the back of my head from receiving another blow. “I don't know what you're talking about, Boss.” 

With teeth bared he growled, “You know damn well what I’m talking about.” The activity around us slowed and came to a halt. all that could be heard was the bustling outside of the barracks.

I didn't reply further, I had nothing more to say. I could see it coming from a mile away but the crack of his stupid meaty fucking knuckles against my jaw was satisfying. the force of the punch had the back of my head bounce off the ground again and my teeth tearing through most of my cheek; the taste of iron flooded over my tongue. I swirled it around in my mouth, letting the tip of my tongue caress the fresh wound, the tingle of pain was fresh and before i even realized it the words “Don't be a coward and hit me again.” rolled off of my bloodied tongue. 

He pulled me up by my collar and slammed me back down, the next blow was accompanied by a sickening crunch, blood began flowing from my nose. The pain rolled outwards through my face, the rest of my body tingled in response. “If you keep shit like this up, I might have to.” He said, as if he didn't just hit me again, “Fucking treat her like a person and not like a burden.” He lifted me off the ground and set me on my feet. 

In return, i spit the blood and saliva mixture onto the ground and grinned with a mouth of sanguine. I resigned, remembering that there were people watching us greedily. “Whatever you say.” Boss can't spar anymore like I can, he can't defend his position of top dog against any soldier that wanted to test their mettle on a regular basis. An understanding was reached a while ago, a twisted bond between two soldiers disguised as loyalty. I’d do what he would need me to do to maintain his status among his men and i wouldn't refuse. He was, all in all, my commanding officer. I simply couldn't.

“Whatever you say, what?”

“Whatever you say,  _ Boss _ .” I watched as his hand finally relaxed, and he nodded at me.

“Clean yourself up and report to my office for disciplinary action.”

“Punching me in the face wasn't enough?”

He grumbled, “No, that's more of a privilege.” and pushed past those that were frozen in their tracks. Hesitation lingered in the room, his presence took a while to fade away, the room soon warmed up and people around me started to come back down to reality. Life continued on and all I heard were soft whispers of how they wished that what they witnessed had happened to them. I stopped by the little first aid kit in the canteen and stripped open a pack of gauze and sugar before stuffing it into my mouth. I shoved some more up my nostrils and traced the lines of the bridge of my nose.

* * *

I saw Naomi on the way to the office and she simply rolled her eyes. I know she wanted to say I overreacted and got what I deserved. She’s said it many times before. For as much as she was my only family, there are times where i wish i left her for dead on that river bed. 

I used a mirror in the medical station to assess the damage before i allowed the doctor to reset it. I might have to get surgery again, but we’ll definitely need to get an x-ray to make sure the synthetic parts are still intact. He told me this matter of factly, he was an old friend who had served to fix my injuries for many years now. He knew better than to ask, he can tell Boss’ handiwork by sight at this point. “Just do me a favor and be careful.” His hands were cold when he rested it on my face, for some reason it felt like those hands cared and i wanted to stop holding my head up and let them carry it. “Your mouth needs stitches.”

“Just do what you need to, doc. I don't care anymore.”


	15. hunger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the more the power, the more the abuse.

_ xv. _

_ The honest part of reliable is the lie. _

I smacked Frank’s arm and the swollen mosquito dug into his skin burst, smearing blood all over. I wiped my hand on my pants and shook my head.

The teen looked at me with tired eyes and a look of annoyance, “First you beg me to come pick you up and now you keep smacking me for no reason.”

“Mosquito.”

“Oh. Okay.” He turned to look at the back of his arm and shrugged, he didn't care much for them to begin with it seemed like. But he cared enough to hiss about the mosquito net being opened prior to dawn. sometimes he will just sit there when he wakes up early, until the sun comes up before he leaves the tent. i learned to start doing that as well, actually as i mistakenly swallowed a mouthful of them. i never told him that, i can't imagine the relentless bullying i would have to endure if i did.

it's hard to see a swarm in the dark.

we continued to head west as our overall goal. I was the spearhead and the recruiter and the icon for all the lost soldiers to flock to. Frank brought in work and short contracts, easily and quickly infiltrating ranks of rebel forces and the military alike with ease. we had spent a total of a month in Nepal before he got me a meeting with an old general who seemed to share like minded ideals. We sat there and sipped tea as the old man offered resources and men, all for the help of the few we had gathered on missions that couldn't be handled by his own people. 

I wish i could tell you about the blood on our hands when we left the region but I would do it all again for a proper foothold in the region. Logistically, setting up our permanent base in a mountainous region wasn't beneficial. We moved on. We adjusted our strategy and decided to say no to government issued war crimes. I would rather take a more difficult path to achieve the same result. 

My nightmares have been getting worse, and ever since Nepal, I feel like i've been forgetting who I am. I don't know how Frank dealt with it, I hadn't seen much of a change in his behavior. I wonder about the things he had seen before now. I wonder if he considered it as business as usual. Maybe we should make a detour to Africa, disputed borders might prove beneficial to us, actually.

“Frank.”

He looked at me, arms crossed without saying a word all slouched on the bench opposite of me.

“You okay?”

He grunted. 

We were on our way north, headed through China. I ran my mind over the possibilities of establishing something on the western front of the country we were flying over but shrugged it off. We were on our way to meet with some soviets. A friend of a friend of a friend implied that there were many soldiers there who were looking for a way out, a way back into the life they couldn't live without. I'll keep them in Nepal until we figure out permanent accommodations.

I kept a running tally in my head, Adhikari had provided me with enough to house 35 men outside of being a temporary refuge for civilians. They would operate the camp in the meanwhile and supplies would be provided. The more men I brought to the camp, the more that the General could pull away from that site and put them on whatever front for whatever fight. I tend to try to not get deeply involved anymore. It's business. It's a means to an end. My only issue is that Khaver informed me that there were far more than 35 men. I took out my little pad of paper where I had been scratching little notes onto, much less of the wordy type and more like the football game plan type.

I went to erase a misplaced X and was met with an eraser rubbed down to nothing, the metal bit on the end scratching against the paper. Frank’s hand angled the notebook towards him and I nearly jumped. There was a brief consideration of putting some type of bell on him in favor of my heart’s health. I don't know how much longer I can take that, in all honesty. His brow furrowed as his eyes stared at the paper. 

“This is messy.” He stated.

“No eraser.” I remarked, as if that was the best and the only excuse.

“What are you trying to figure out?”

“We’re bringing back more than 60 men. We have 12 stationed at the camp already, not enough spots on the roster to keep these soldiers.”

“Establish another camp.”

“I was thinking in China, but we don't have another camp right now. I need to talk with my men and establish a drop off on a route and some kind of agreement with whoever is in charge there. Do you know who’s in charge of China?”

Frank shook his head no, “We can still keep them all in the same place. The whole place will still be staffed by us, no?”

“Yes…”

“So why not take up refugee spots instead?”

“Because they're refugees.”

“So?”

“You can’t do that.”

“You just don't  _ want _ to do that.” Frank accused me, with a sharp grin on his face, “Do you know what these people in our camp are fleeing from?”

“Violence?”

“They heard of a little village being razed for supporting the Royal Family.”

“So they're scared.”

“They're fine, the only people who are going to hurt them are right here.” Frank threw his arm around my shoulders and kept smiling. “And if we decide to not hurt them anymore, what harm does it do if we fill up all those beds with our own men?”

“Adhikari lied to me.”

“He thought you were gullible.”

“I’m not.”

“He called you a gullible foreigner.”

“I'm not- well i'm a foreigner but i'm not gullible. You speak Nepalese now too?”

“No.”

“Get your arm off of me,” I shrugged him off, “what happens when we get caught?”

“We won't.”

“How can you ensure that?”

“I can't… unless.”

“Unless what?”

“We kill him.”

I blamed it on the fact that he was young and restless and just laughed in response. I didn't realize it was the wrong response until Frank frowned, a storm cloud formed over his head.

“It's not fucking funny.”

“I-I know, it's not.” I sobered up quickly, uncertain of how to deal with the flip in attitude.

“Then why were you laughing at me?”

“I wasn't laughing at you.”

“What were you laughing at?”

“The fact that you always jump to murder to resolve all your problems. You know that’s not how the world works, right?”

“We live in two separate worlds, then.” The storm subsided and he visibly relaxed.

“I guess we do.” I really believed that one day a fine young man will be chiseled out of the stone that he encased himself in, and if there wasn't a good man underneath the rocky exterior i'll make an even better soldier. Just have to get past this really annoying phase of him being a fucking dick. Usually a good knock or two puts him in place but you have to have a balance. Leave it to the element of surprise. Teenagers, am I right?

Dimitry Khaver greeted us when we landed and briefed us on the situation, he wasn't going to come with us but would be staying as a point of contact for more men. He sat us down for dinner with his wife who took kindly to Frank, I noticed she put more food on his plate than she put on mine. She pinched his cheeks and not mine. She let him rest his head on her shoulder, when we moved from the dinner table to the living room for further discussion but it didn't seem like she would do the same for me. Did she not realize this was actual business and not the time to pretend that Frank was some long lost son?

i'm not jealous, you are.

He was only 16 and a hit with the ladies despite his nonexistent interest in them, maybe he’ll grow out of it, but a true soldier should strive to be more like him. There were a lot of things that were odd about the situation, in particular none of these men were able to willingly leave due to one thing or another. Be it duties to their families or the governments.

Frank bit into an Alyonka bar and did his best to follow the conversation, I didn't do too much to teach him but with the new crew coming in, he would have a lot of time to practice.

Dima struggled to make what he wanted us to do obvious.

“Do you want us to kidnap them?” I asked.

“Yes but-” Dima started.

“-Just tell us where they live.” I was starting to get annoyed, but I tried not to show it, it was in confidence that Ocelot had connected us both. “We’ll get them out of here within 6 months for all of them.”

“And if there are more that wish to join you?” He asked nervously.

“Then we expand the timeline, until I have a better place to put them all.” It was always better to keep a working relationship when building an empire of sorts. I heard the crinkle of a wrapper and watched Frank fold the wrapper of his chocolate and save it for later. I wanted it. I wasn't offered any. Oh, to be a little vietnamese boy cared for by a busty ukrainian woman.

“How do you deal with the newspapers?” Frank piped up, finally ready to weigh in.

“People still disappear a lot, they don't report on these things anymore.”

“Right. We’ll figure it out from here.” I stood up and offered my hand from him to shake. He locked eyes with me and briefly furrowed his brow.

“He told me you were rude.”

“He really said that?”

“He said Americans are rude and to not be offended by that.”

“We just like to get down to business.”

“He said you would say that.”

“He always seems to know what I’ll say. Let’s go Frank. We’ve got a quota of grown men to kidnap.”

Frank got up from the sunken in couch and smiled at the woman who was doting on him. i rarely had seen him so comfortable up until now. He collected his things and moved on. When we got into the rental sedan his exterior hardened again.

“Hey.” I said.

“What do you want?” Frank replied.

“What would I do if I just left you there?”

“Left me where?” There was a hitch in his voice when he spoke.

“Left you with the Khavers, what would you do?”

“You wouldn't do that.” He strapped himself in with his seatbelt and looked out the window, “You’d be an idiot.”

“You looked like you were having fun.”

He didn't answer for a while; he was probably thinking how nice a life as a civilian might have been. “If you left me there… No, you wouldn't, so there's no point in thinking about it.”

If Frank had one arm reaching out of a grave I would pull him out and put him back together again. Keep on keeping on.

Back then I thought it was a kindness afforded to him.

“I’m just pulling your chain, kid.” I felt weird about it, though. He’ll never sleep in a comfortable bed or in the bosom of a woman who raised him. Was I keeping him from all of that? No, he made his choice. He knows what he was meant to do. Our lives aren't easy ones, they're not something we have control over. “Let’s just get something to eat and plan these kidnappings.”

“They're not kids, stop calling it kidnappings.” Frank mixed the seasoning packet of his MRE into the bag and shook it. Nowadays there were all these fancy types of meals, back then, well… I don't even want to talk about it.

“Kidnapping isn't exclusive to kids. Anybody can get kidnapped,” I replied. 

“That's stupid. It makes no sense.”

“The English language isn't stupid.”

“If you're an adult you can't get kidnapped.”

“But you can.”

“No you can't.”

“How about we agree to disagree?”

“I’ll only agree if you agree you're wrong.”

I was defeated, honestly; all arguments would be awfully cyclical with a 16 year old that actually kind of had a point. Why call it kidnapping if it's not a term exclusive to children? We’re  _ abducting _ fully grown men. “I will only agree to end this stupid conversation.”

“I’ll take that.” The look on his face was smug and he folded his arms across his chest, doing his best to stifle a grin. Maybe he thought that celebrating his victory so outwardly, with something as large as a smile, would bother me. He would be correct.

There was a decrepit dacha that took about three to four hours to get to from the Khaver residence, a cold war relic abandoned for a couple decades, decrepit and virtually empty. 

“Not bad.” Frank smiled. It was quaint and technically belonged to nobody. 

“I spent a few months here when I was about your age, looked better back then though.”

“Was that when polio was still going around?”

“It was a concern.”

“Is that why you came here?”

“No, I came here to train.”

“Train what?”

“Survival.”

The teenager rolled his eyes, “Whatever.”

“We’re gonna fix this place up and then I’ll guide you through your first op.”

“I've been on ops before this.”

I pat him on shoulder and smiled, “You’re in charge on this one. You think you can handle it.” Underneath his skin was a special type of chaos moulded and sculpted into a soldier I could be proud of.

“Duh, I can handle anything.” The smug look on his face returned. “It's going to take a while to get them all home.”

“I’ll give you six months. Does that sound fair?”

“It’s good enough.”

“Maybe this experience will finally humble you.” 

All in all, I had handed the kid busy work. Busy work with a side of souring relationships with the East on the side, but if he got caught then he got caught and I would move on from there with a contingency. It was in my best interest that everything went along smoothly. He opted to not stay at the dacha, later informing me that the Khavers had set up a room for him to sleep in when he needed it and that the dacha was old and run down. You know, back in my day we wouldn't complain about something as small as no running water. 

Kids these days. Fucking ungrateful.


End file.
